LYNN  HAROLD 


BT  15  . H7  1915 

Hough,  Lynn  Harold,  1877- 

The  quest  for  wonder 


Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 
in  2019  with  funding  from 
Princeton  Theological  Seminary  Library 


https://archive.org/details/questforwonderotOOhoug_O 


OTHER  BOOKS  BY  THIS  AUTHOR 


16mo.  Net,  50  cents 
12mo.  Net,  25  cents 


THE  MEN  OF  THE  GOSPELS 
THE  LURE  OF  BOOKS 
ATHANASIUS:  THE  HERO 

l2mo.  Net,  $1.00 

THE  THEOLOGY  OF  A  PREACHER 

l2mo.  Net,  $1.00 


AND 


OTHER  PHILOSOPHICAL  AND 
THEOLOGICAL  STUDIES 


BY 

LYNN  HAROLD  HOUGH 


Professor  of  Historical  Theology  in 
Garrett  Biblical  Institute 


THE  ABINGDON  PRESS 

NEW  YORK  CINCINNATI 


Copyright,  1915.  by 
LYNN  HAROLD  HOUGH 


TO  MY  FRIEND 
DR.  HENRY  M.  WILSON 
A  SOUTHERN  GENTLEMAN 
OF  THE  OLD  SCHOOL 
THIS  VOLUME  IS 
AFFECTIONATELY 
INSCRIBED 


CHAPTER 


CONTENTS 


PAGE 

A  Word  to  the  Reader .  9 

I.  The  Quest  for  Wonder. . 11 

II.  The  Preacher  as  a  Student  of  Phi¬ 
losophy  . 43 

III.  Bergson,  as  Seen  from  a  Preacher’s 

Study .  73 

IV.  The  Religion  of  a  Scientific  Man.  101 

V.  The  New  Orthodoxy . 129 

VI.  Bushnell  and  “The  Vicarious  Sac¬ 
rifice5'  . .  155 

VII.  Robert  William  Dale  and  His  The¬ 
ology,  With  Special  Considera¬ 
tion  of  His  Theory  of  the  Atone¬ 
ment  . 187 

VIII.  The  Theological  Situation  Regard¬ 
ing  the  Atonement .  217 

IX.  The  Theology  of  Albrecht  Ritschl  247 

X.  The  Eschatology  of  the  Book  of 

Revelation .  275 


A  WORD  TO  THE  READER 


After  about  sixteen  years  in  the  pastor¬ 
ate  the  author  of  these  studies  finds  himself 
entering  upon  the  work  of  a  theological 
professor.  He  has  published  much  in  the 
periodicals  of  his  church  and  in  book  form 
during  this  time,  and  those  interested  are 
not  unfamiliar  with  his  general  position  on 
philosophical  and  theological  matters.  The 
volume,  The  Theology  of  a  Preacher,  in 
particular  sets  forth  in  an  informal  and 
untechnical  way  his  attitude  toward  the 
significant  matters  in  the  realm  of  Christian 
doctrine. 

The  present,  however,  seems  an  appro¬ 
priate  time  for  the  publication  of  a  number 
of  studies  which  express  in  a  somewhat 
formal  way  the  results  of  investigation  and 
grapple  and  thought  regarding  the  funda¬ 
mental  problems  which  confront  the  Chris¬ 
tian  thinker.  The  separate  discussions  are 
published  in  the  form  in  which  they  were 
written  at  different  periods,  and  this  will 
account  for  some  repetition  and  for  some 

9 


THE  QUEST  FOR  WONDER 

difference  in  mental  atmosphere.  Although 
the  studies  touch  upon  a  variety  of  themes, 
they  reflect  one  general  point  of  view  and 
one  set  of  principles  applied  to  numerous 
problems.  Thanks  are  due  to  the  publishers 
of  the  Methodist  Review,  the  Methodist 
Quarterly  Review,  and  the  Bible  Magazine 
for  permission  to  reprint  material  which  has 
appeared  in  these  periodicals. 

Lynn  Harold  Hough. 

Evanston,  Illinois. 


10 


THE  QUEST  FOR  WONDER 


CHAPTER  I 
THE  QUEST  FOR  WONDER 

A  serious  and  thoughtful  man  once  had 
a  singular  dream.  He  dreamed  that  a  race 
of  men  arose  gifted  with  a  strange  power 
to  experiment  with  the  fundamental  char¬ 
acteristics  of  the  natural  world.  They  could 
change  the  qualities  of  the  soil.  They  could 
rearrange  the  laws  of  physics  and  chemistry. 
They  could  separate  things  which  have  al¬ 
ways  been  united  and  unite  things  which 
have  always  been  separated.  They  could 
take  qualities  from  the  thing  to  which  they 
have  always  belonged  and  give  them  to  other 
things.  Nothing  was  beyond  the  reach  of 
their  manipulations. 

For  a  time  this  powerful  race  greatly  en¬ 
joyed  its  unusual  activities;  but  by  and  by 
it  became  evident  that  the  new  race  was 
spoiling  the  world.  The  soil  was  tampered 
with  until  its  fertility  was  affected.  Rays 
of  light  were  so  treated  that  the  illuminating 
and  warming  power  greatly  decreased.  At 

13 


THE  QUEST  FOR  WONDER 


last  a  new  world  was  produced  in  which 
everything  was  haphazard.  Men  gradually 
adjusted  themselves  to  a  dwarfed  and  im¬ 
poverished  life.  The  race  lost  its  power  to 
experiment  with  nature  and  settled  down  to 
live  in  a  dull,  gray,  hardly  tolerable  world, 
the  product  of  its  own  mistaken  energy. 

Fortunately,  such  fundamental  tamper¬ 
ing  with  nature  has  never  been  within  the 
reach  of  human  power,  though  John  Ruskin 
would  probably  have  said  that  many  a  great 
city  in  its  loathsome  conditions  represents 
very  much  this  sort  of  thing.  But  what  is 
impossible  physically  is  quite  possible  intel¬ 
lectually.  We  live  in  the  physical  world 
God  has  made.  We  live  in  the  intellectual 
world  men  have  made. 

Now,  the  actual  meaning  of  human  life 
as  a  personal  experience  is  very  largely 
determined  by  the  mental  outlook  of  the  man 
who  is  going  through  the  experience.  What 
he  believes,  what  he  hopes,  what  he  fears, 
what  he  unconsciously  assumes — the  whole 
range  of  his  thoughts  about  life — make  up 
the  vital  part  of  his  world.  The  physical 
world  is  only  a  background,  and  for  the 

14 


THE  QUEST  FOR  WONDER 


purposes  of  the  deepest  meaning  of  joy  and 
sorrow,  hope  and  fear,  often  a  very  inci¬ 
dental  background  of  the  personal  life. 

This  world  of  the  mind  men  make  and 
destroy  and  remake.  They  can  manipulate 
it  in  all  sorts  of  ways.  They  can  make  it 
good  or  bad,  beautiful  or  ugly,  glad  or  miser¬ 
able.  And  this  is  the  world  of  destiny  into 
which  all  of  us  are  born.  Superstition  has 
filled  air  and  earth  with  evil  spirits.  The 
fact  that  they  had  no  existence  save  in  the 
minds  of  those  who  believed  in  them,  did  not 
lessen  the  tragedy  of  believing  in  a  devil- 
haunted  world.  Every  religion  had  pro¬ 
vided  a  mental  environment  for  its  wor¬ 
shipers.  And  thus  many  a  religion  has 
cramped  and  destroyed  some  of  the  fairest 
things  of  life. 

Civilization  is  another  name  for  the 
mental  environment  humanity  creates  as  it 
moves  onward  for  succeeding  generations. 
You  are  born  into  its  sanctions.  They  are 
offered  to  you  as  a  suit  of  clothing  you  must 
wear  if  you  are  to  have  social  relations  with 
the  men  of  your  time.  Of  course  you  may 
refuse  the  suit  of  clothing.  Rut  you  will 

15 


THE  QUEST  FOR  WONDER 


become  an  outcast  if  you  do.  And  we  must 
frankly  confess  that  the  suit  is  not  alwaj^s 
made  of  the  best  material,  nor  is  it  always 
a  good  fit.  The  scholars  and  the  philoso¬ 
phers  and  the  great  leaders  have  used  their 
energies  modifying  the  mental  environment 
of  the  race,  and  often  they  have  taken 
oxygen  out  of  the  mental  atmosphere  and 
have  made  it  very  difficult  to  breathe.  There 
has  not  always  been  an  adequate  realization 
on  the  part  of  the  intellectual  leaders  of  the 
race  of  the  fact  that  it  is  a  very  responsible 
thing  to  provide  mental  food  for  men. 

To  be  sure,  vast  and  wonderful  are  the 
achievements  of  the  human  mind.  Splendid 
is  the  tale  of  human  progress.  But  it  is  by 
no  means  a  one-sided  story,  and  the  man 
who  would  make  the  most  out  of  life  as  a 
personal  experience  must  learn  to  be  a  critic 
as  well  as  a  disciple.  He  must  enlist  in  the 
most  subtle  warfare  in  the  world,  the 
struggle  for  an  intellectual  background 
which  constantly  enlarges  life  and  never 
causes  it  to  shrink.  The  point  of  view  which 
saps  the  vitality  from  existence  has  no  right 
in  the  world,  and  the  slavery  to  a  point  of 

16 


THE  QUEST  FOR  WONDER 


view  which  dwarfs  humanity  is  the  most 
intolerable  slavery  on  the  planet. 

In  the  light  of  these  facts  we  want  to 
make  a  survey  of  certain  intellectual  tenden- 

m/ 

cies  which  have  moved  very  deeply  in  the 
life  of  men.  We  want  to  see  their  strength 
and  their  weakness,  their  tragedy  and  their 
hope,  and  to  reach  some  practical  conclu¬ 
sions  which  a  careful  and  analytical  inspec¬ 
tion  will  suggest. 

The  two  fundamental  characteristics  of 
the  mind  are  the  desire  for  stability  and  the 
desire  for  wonder.  To  put  it  in  another 
wav,  they  are  the  desire  for  unity  and  the 
desire  for  diversity. 

The  Greeks  found  the  two  characteristics 
coming  to  clenched  antagonism  when  the 
substance  of  the  Eleatics  faced  the  moving 
procession  of  Heraclitus.  Whenever  men 
become  really  reflective  one  of  these  desires 
is  likely  to  become  paramount.  The  desire 
for  stability  with  one  thinker  casts  out  the 
desire  for  wonder.  In  another  the  desire 
for  a  world  full  of  initiative  and  surprise 
and  movement  casts  out  the  desire  for  a  close 
and  coherent  and  unified  view  of  life. 

17 


THE  QUEST  FOR  WONDER 


I 

There  have  been  periods  when  men’s  view 
of  life  and  the  world  has  made  full  room 
for  wonder  and  surprise,  but  has  sadly 
lacked  in  making  any  provision  for  the  in¬ 
tellectual  stability  of  the  world. 

This  is  true  especially  of  primitive  and 
barbarous  peoples.  And  this  accounts  for 
that  naive  and  beautiful  poetry  which  is  so 
characteristic  of  them.  The  Indian  on  the 
plain,  the  Negro  in  his  cabin,  the  backward 
races  of  the  world  everywhere,  live  in  a  world 
with  amazing  and  beautiful  and  torturing 
possibilities  of  surprise.  The  folklore  stories 
of  the  world,  the  myths  fresh  from  the  child¬ 
like  heart  of  humanity ;  the  religions  of 
nature  with  their  astonishing  reflection  of 
the  quality  of  primitive  human  experience 
and  desire — all  these  belong  to  the  unreflec- 
tive,  believing,  wonder  ages  of  the  world  and 
the  stages  of  human  experience  which  cor¬ 
respond  to  them.  At  their  best  they  repre¬ 
sent  the  fine  flower  of  the  superstition  of 
the  world;  at  their  worst  they  represent  a 
brutal  and  lawless  and  terrible  expression 

18 


THE  QUEST  FOR  WONDER 


of  the  most  degraded  and  wildest  things  in 
human  life.  Hawthorne’s  Donatello  in  The 
Marble  Faun  lived  in  this  world  of  nature’s 
marvel  and  bewildering  surprise  until  the 
shock  of  the  awakening  and  disillusionment 
came. 

The  ethnic  religions  had  made  it  a  point 
to  preserve  the  reign  of  wonder.  Often  they 
have  done  it  partly  by  means  of  the  grossest 
and  most  vicious  types  of  superstition.  The 
wonder-world  of  the  Arabian  Nights  is  an 
illustration  of  what  can  be  done  when 
imagination  is  allowed  to  take  long  flights. 
If  you  do  not  like  it,  you  can  call  it  a  gam¬ 
bler’s  world.  Rut  at  least  it  is  a  world  where 
lethargy  is  impossible.  You  are  not  likely 
to  go  to  sleep  or  be  bored  in  any  of  its  scenes. 
Something  is  always  going  to  happen,  and 
you  never  know  quite  what  it  is.  But  not 
only  Mohammedanism,  but  practically  every 
ethnic  faith  has  its  throne  of  wonder  sur¬ 
rounded  by  rainbow  colors  of  astonishment 
* 

and  surprise. 

One  of  the  distinguishing  characteristics 
of  Roman  Catholicism  has  been  the  entire 
preservation  of  the  reign  of  wonder.  To  dip 

19 


THE  QUEST  FOR  WONDER 


into  the  life  of  a  Roman  Catholic  saint  is 
like  suddenly  dropping  into  another  world 
where  no  one  has  ever  heard  of  the  reign 
of  law.  The  marvelous  lures  and  beckons 
and  you  live  in  a  country  where  all  the  charm 
of  fairyland  is  called  into  play  as  an  asset 
of  religion. 

The  limitations  and  inadequacies  of  all 
this  kind  of  interpretation  of  life  are  clearly 
visible  to  the  careful  thinker.  Wonder  is 
preserved  at  the  expense  of  rationality.  Sur¬ 
prise  and  glamour  and  charm  and  the  beat¬ 
ing  of  fairy  wings  are  secured  at  the  expense 
of  an  ordered  and  coherent  and  lawful  uni¬ 
verse.  This  kind  of  a  paradise  of  wonder 
is  a  paradise  of  the  ignorant.  Knowledge 
drives  away  the  spirits  and  the  fairies  and 
the  gnomes.  You  must  pay  for  these,  the 
experiences  of  childlike  belief  in  the  myths 
of  many  an  ethnic  religion,  by  remaining  in 
some  degree  a  barbarian  at  heart. 

Then  the  reign  of  wonder  in  these  realms 
is  an  unethical  thing.  A  brilliant  theolo¬ 
gian  once  made  an  observation  to  the  effect 
that  whenever  you  have  a  profound  belief 
in  the  supernatural  without  a  deep  and  com- 

20 


THE  QUEST  FOR  WONDER 


manding  ethical  sense  you  have  superstition. 
In  the  primitive  peoples  and  religions  and 
the  survivals  of  the  primitive  wonder-feeling 
you  have  exactly  that  situation.  And  with 
all  the  subtle  charm  of  many  a  bit  of  folk¬ 
lore  and  legend,  the  other  side  of  the  story 
reveals  a  capricious,  lawless,  undependable 
universe.  You  pay  for  your  fairies  by  mak¬ 
ing  room  for  demons.  You  pay  for  your 
endless  miracles  by  accepting  a  universe 
which  has  no  firmly  grounded  unity  and 
consistency  and  stability.  You  pay  for  your 
glad  surprises  by  the  possibility  of  very 
deadly  surprises.  There  is  nothing  you  can 
depend  on,  and  life  is  reduced  in  one  way  or 
another  to  a  matter  of  magic  and  incanta¬ 
tion.  The  wildly  and  terribty  dramatic 
features  triumph  at  last.  The  leering  devils 
drive  away  the  fairies,  and  one  day  you 
awake  to  find  your  religion  a  devil-worship. 
Thus  it  has  happened  in  more  than  one 
ethnic  cult. 

II 

There  have  been  periods  where  men’s 
view  of  life  was  based  on  the  unity  and  co¬ 
herency  of  the  universe,  when  there  was  a 

21 


THE  QUEST  FOR  WONDER 


firm  intellectual  stability  in  the  interpreta¬ 
tion  of  the  world,  but  where  the  sense  of 
wonder  was  all  the  while  being  driven 
farther  and  farther  away.  It  is  a  great 
relief  to  turn  from  the  futilities  and  absurdi¬ 
ties  of  barbarism  to  the  careful  use  of  the 
inductive  method  of  reasoning  and  the  rise 
of  modern  science.  At  every  stage  of  the 
process  some  hoary  superstition  has  van¬ 
ished.  A  thousand  terrible  and  torturing 
phantoms  have  been  driven  away  as  the 
triumphant  armies  of  science  have  moved 
forward.  One  realm  after  another  has  been 
invaded.  Its  materials  have  been  analyzed 
and  classified.  All  has  been  reduced  to  sub¬ 
serviency  to  the  reign  of  law.  Cause  and 
effect  have  become  the  regal  words  of  the 
language,  and  the  widening  ranges  of  the 
application  of  great  scientific  principles  have 
been  sources  of  delight  to  the  investigator 
and  to  the  man  who  was  building  large 
philosophic  generalizations  on  the  returns  of 
science  as  they  come  in. 

Now,  it  is  easy  to  see  that  the  superstitious 
religions  of  the  world  created  an  artificial 
and  unreal  universe.  They  tampered  with 

22 


THE  QUEST  FOR  WONDER 


men’s  thoughts  about  life,  and  in  many  cases 
caused  them  to  inhabit  a  world  made  ter¬ 
rible  and  unhappy  by  thoughts  which  were 
the  product  of  human  imagination.  The 
mental  environment  of  the  ethnic  religions 
is  a  human  creation,  and  to  a  large  degree 
a  creation  having  no  relation  to  the  reality 
of  things.  All  this  is  quickly  conceded. 
But  now  we  come  to  another  matter, 
equally  true,  and  yet  not  nearly  so  easy  to 
see  or  appreciate.  When  the  reign  of  law 
was  substituted  for  the  reign  of  wonder, 
and  modern  science  began  to  be  turned  into 
scientific  philosophy,  once  more  there  began 
the  creation  of  an  artificial  mental  environ¬ 
ment.  The  synthetic  philosophy  is  as  far 
from  the  reality  of  human  experience  as 
would  be  a  philosophy  attempting  to  include 
as  real  all  the  features  of  Arabian  Nights. 
The  scientific  explanation  of  the  universe 
has  been  so  busy  with  things  and  forces  that 
it  has  never  faced  the  meaning  of  person¬ 
ality.  It  has  been  so  busy  with  physical 
coherency  and  uniformity  that  it  has  never 
understood  that  freedom  and  initiative  and 
movement  which  belong  to  the  personal 

23 


THE  QUEST  FOR  WONDER 


mental  life.  Barbarism  made  the  mistake 
of  attempting  to  explain  all  impersonal 
things  in  the  immediate  terms  of  personality. 
Much  scientific  philosophy  has  made  the 
mistake  of  trying  to  explain  personal  ex¬ 
perience  in  impersonal  terms. 

To  follow  the  logic  of  the  scientific  ap¬ 
praisal  when  it  leaves  its  proper  task  of 
being  bookkeeper  to  catalogue  physical 
uniformities,  and  puts  out  its  sign  as  a 
master  in  philosophy,  is  one  of  the  most  dis¬ 
appointing  things  in  all  the  world. 

The  rise  of  modern  science,  to  be  sure,  is 
like  a  sudden  sunrise.  The  victories  over 
hoary  superstition  are  good  to  witness. 
Endless  vistas  spread  out  before  us.  New 
worlds  lie  all  about  us  ready  for  the  con¬ 
queror.  This  was  the  situation  in  the  middle 
of  the  nineteenth  century  and  for  some  time 
after.  Then  there  came  a  strange  change. 
A  dull  lethargy  began  to  settle  down  upon 
the  world.  Doors  were  closing  with  a  bang. 
Vistas  which  had  seemed  infinite  contracted 
and  disappeared.  The  spring  and  enthusi¬ 
asm  of  the  youth  of  modern  science  were 
transformed  into  a  premature  old  age.  The 

24 


THE  QUEST  FOR  WONDER 

warmth  and  brightness  of  life  began  to  wane. 
The  new  world,  it  began  to  appear,  was  not 
a  world  in  which  men  could  be  happy. 
Matthew  Arnold’s  Scholar  Gipsy  is  a  fair 
expression  of  the  new  mood.  The  wisest 
man  takes  his  seat  dejectedly  upon  the  intel¬ 
lectual  throne. 

What  has  happened?  Why  this  dullness, 
these  heavy  eyes,  this  lethargy  which  seems 
likely  to  become  despair  ?  The  answer  is  that 
the  men  who  by  too  hasty  generalizations 
were  transforming  science  into  philosophy 
had  tampered  with  the  intellectual  life  of 

had  built  a  system  smaller 
than  life.  They  offered  a  stone  when  per¬ 
sonality  must  have  bread — and  this  quite 
literally— for  they  were  in  fact  attempting 
to  reduce  the  organic  to  the  terms  of  the  in¬ 
organic.  Men  woke  up  to  find  that  they 
lived  in  a  world  from  which  initiative  and 
movement  and  freedom  were  gone.  The 
wonder  of  the  world  had  been  cast  out  for 
the  sake  of  uniformity.  Freshness  and 
surprise  had  been  trodden  under  the  foot 
of  stability.  The  trouble  with  barbarism 
is  that  under  its  sanction  anything  can 

25 


the  world.  They 


THE  QUEST  FOR  WONDER 


happen.  The  trouble  with  the  scientific 
appraisals  of  which  we  are  speaking  is  that 
under  these  sanctions  nothing  in  a  personal 
sense  can  happen  at  all. 

This  situation  accounts  for  the  wide  hear¬ 
ing  of  the  men  who  are  crying  out,  “Back  to 
the  mediaeval.”  Celtic  romance,  Gilbert 
Chesterton’s  brilliant  paradoxes,  all  the  cry 
for  a  return  to  fairyland — these  are  the  in¬ 
evitable  reaction  from  an  interpretation  of 
life  which  reduces  the  universe  to  a  system 
of  pigeonholes — everything  fastened  so 
tightly  that  not  even  a  worm  could  crawl 
from  one  hole  to  another.  How  new  and 
different  the  intellectual  situation  is,  is  sug¬ 
gested  by  the  fact  that  Newman  went  to 
Rome  to  find  intellectual  rest.  Gilbert 
Chesterton  finds  the  world  of  modern  science 
so  deadly  dull  and  commonplace  that  he 
seems  in  a  fair  way  to  go  to  Rome  to  find 
excitement. 

A  new  appeal  of  the  Roman  Catholic 
Church,  of  which  farsighted  ecclesiastics 
will  not  be  slow  to  take  advantage,  is  this 
preserving  in  a  scientific  age  of  an  emphasis 
on  that  wonder  of  the  world  of  which  the 

26 


THE  QUEST  FOR  WONDER 


human  heart  will  not  be  robbed.  The  nine¬ 
teenth  century  saw  the  maturity  of  a  system 
of  reducing  all  life  to  the  mechanical  on  the 
side  of  materialism,  which  robbed  the  world 
of  freedom  and  stir  and  wonder.  So  much 
was  the  net  result  at  this  point  of  the  syn¬ 
thetic  philosophy.  It  saw  the  maturity  of 
an  intellectual  interpretation  which  reduced 
life  to  a  mental  mechanism  and  so  destroyed 
freedom  and  initiative  and  wonder.  This 
was  the  Hegelian  outcome.  In  each  case 
logic  attempted  to  shut  the  door  in  the 
face  of  life.  It  would  be  the  supreme 
delight  of  Rome  if  Protestantism  should 
so  completely  ally  itself  with  these  forces 
of  mechanical  thought,  or  at  least  so  im¬ 
bibe  their  atmosphere,  as  to  lose  its  sense 
of  wonder  entirely.  A  rationalistic  Prot¬ 
estantism  is  the  greatest  hope  of  Rome,  for, 
with  all  its  faults,  Rome  has  preserved  the 
sense  of  freedom  and  movement  and  wonder 
in  the  world. 

If  it  is  true,  on  the  one  hand,  that  bar¬ 
barism  creates  a  false  and  deadly  mental 
environment  because  it  preserves  wonder  at 
the  expense  of  stability,  it  is  true,  on  the 

27 


THE  QUEST  FOR  WONDER 


other,  that  much  modern  thinking  has 
created  a  false  and  deadly  mental  environ¬ 
ment  by  preserving  stability  at  the  expense 
of  wonder.  A  universe  of  mere  mechanical 
interactions  is  an  impossible  universe  for  a 
wholesome  growing  human  life. 

Ill 

In  this  whole  situation  we  can  appreciate 
the  quest  for  wonder  as  a  fundamental  char¬ 
acteristic  of  present-day  life  and  thought. 
Very  often  it  is  a  partly  subconscious  quest. 
Men  are  dull  and  restless.  They  feel 
cramped  and  hedged  in.  There  is  something 
suffocating  about  their  mental  atmosphere. 
Instinctively  they  begin  to  fight  for  room 
and  space  to  breathe  and  for  a  larger  life. 
Some  men,  in  sheer  despair,  stop  thinking 
and  fall  into  physical  indulgence.  Here  at 
least  they  find  a  counterfeit  of  that  wonder 
their  souls  desire.  If  they  cannot  have  a 
world  of  spiritual  glow  and  freshness,  they 
will  at  least  have  a  world  of  physical  sensa¬ 
tion.  To  nobler  spirits,  of  course,  such  an 
alternative  is  impossible.  They  live  in  moral 
loyalty  to  ideals  which,  so  far  as  they  can  see, 

28 


THE  QUEST  FOR  WONDER 


have  no  foundation  in  the  system  of  things. 
They  realize  as  they  think  more  clearly  and 
accurately  that  their  view  of  life  logically 
pronounces  the  death  warrant  of  personal 
freedom  and  power  of  decision,  of  that  per¬ 
sonal  initiative  in  God  or  man  which  makes 
wonder  and  surprise  and  freshness  of  life 
possible.  They  see  at  last  that  their  point 
of  view  is  incompatible  with  the  validity  of 
morals  and  religion.  Their  deepest  intui¬ 
tions  are  in  direct  antagonism  with  what 
they  conceive  to  be  the  facts  of  life.  Such 
a  man  as  Arthur  Hugh  Clough  felt  the 
torturing  pang  of  this  dilemma,  and  to  many 
a  man  of  science  whose  thinking  has  moved 
along  these  lines  the  whole  experience  has 
been  a  personal  tragedy. 

But  such  a  state  of  disillusionment  de¬ 
veloping  into  despair  could  not  be  the  last 
word.  The  quest  for  wonder  was  bound  to 
become  more  than  a  subconscious  movement. 
Life,  like  a  great  river,  was  sure  to  rise  and 
overflow  the  embankments  of  cold,  hard 
logic.  As  a  matter  of  fact  this  has  already 
happened.  The  pragmatists  in  England  and 
America  are  prophets  of  an  interpretation 

29 


THE  QUEST  FOR  WONDER 


of  life  where  there  is  room  for  wonder,  where 
in  a  fresh  and  vital  way  things  can  really 
happen.  The  pragmatists  are  sometimes 
superficial,  and  sometimes  they  seem  to  treat 
some  facts  in  a  cavalier  fashion,  and  some¬ 
times  they  seem  to  mistake  a  method  for  a 
philosophy.  But  this  is  to  be  said  for  them: 
they  have  seen  that  life  itself  is  more  com¬ 
manding  than  our  thoughts  about  life.  They 
have  seen  that  our  experience  is  more  mas¬ 
terful  than  the  logical  systems  by  means  of 
which  we  try  to  interpret  it.  They  have 
declared  in  no  uncertain  tone  that  life  itself 
has  the  right  of  way.  And  this  declaration 
brings  in  again  the  wonder  and  the  surprise 
of  the  world. 

Henri  Bergson,  whose  brilliant  work  at 
the  College  de  France  is  known  to  all  the 
world,  is  another  prophet  of  the  reaction 
from  the  mechanical  view  of  life.  The  Crea¬ 
tive  Evolution  is  a  sort  of  philosophers’ 
Magna  Charta  of  the  wonder  of  the  world. 
Freedom,  vital  movement,  the  full  recogni¬ 
tion  of  the  place  of  the  unexpected;  the 
glow,  the  freshness,  the  stimulus  of  living 
in  a  world  where  everything  has  not  hap- 

30 


THE  QUEST  FOR  WONDER 


pened,  and  where  the  great  unknown  future 
beckons — all  of  this  is  preserved  and  de¬ 
fended  in  masterful  fashion  in  Professor 
Bergson’s  work,  by  an  intellect  of  almost 
uncanny  acuteness. 

Professor  Rudolf  Eucken,  at  Jena,  is 
another  prophet  of  the  reaction  from  the 
reign  of  mechanics  in  human  thought.  Not 
so  brilliant  as  Professor  Bergson,  he  has 
more  spiritual  depth,  more  richness  of  inner 
life,  more  feeling  for  the  deep  moral  and 
spiritual  meanings  of  experience.  He  has 
waged  a  long  battle  for  a  universe  fit  to  be 
a  dwelling  place  for  a  man  with  a  soul. 
There  is  a  vein  of  rich  mysticism  in  his  think¬ 
ing,  and  the  deep  spiritual  currents  of  ex¬ 
perience  are  as  real  to  him  as  any  facts  of 
life.  In  the  name  of  the  spiritual  life,  with 
its  wonder  and  surprise  and  creative  energy, 
he  repudiates  the  reduction  of  the  inner  life 
of  man  to  a  subtle  kind  of  chemistry.  With 
him  too  life,  the  highest,  most  palpitating, 
most  regally  free  life,  has  the  right  of  way. 

The  whole  pluralistic  movement  is  a  re¬ 
action  from  the  unity  of  a  universe  which 
secures  stability  at  the  expense  of  movement 

81 


THE  QUEST  FOR  WONDER 


and  banishes  the  play  of  living  and  free 
energy  from  the  life  of  the  world.  It  would 
rather  rest  with  unsolved  mental  problems 
than  sacrifice  the  richness  of  life.  It  would 
be  daring  enough  to  accept  a  sort  of  phil¬ 
osophic  polytheism  rather  than  a  lifeless 
universe  which  made  real  movement  im¬ 
possible. 

All  of  these  aspects  of  present-day  think¬ 
ing  demonstrate  that  the  nineteenth  century 
lias  actually  passed  and  that  we  live  in  a  new 
world.  There  is  much  that  is  topsy-turvy 
about  it  all.  Sometimes  the  quest  for 
wonder  seems  the  quest  of  an  infant  with  no 
language  but  a  cry.  This  infant,  however, 
has  good,  strong  lungs  and  it  cries  very 
lustily.  The  whole  situation  reveals  a  mass 
of  seething  forces  very  vital,  very  full  of 
energy,  many  of  them  untamed  but  all  zest¬ 
ful  and  eager  and  moving  violently.  One 
feels  that  it  is  good  to  be  alive  in  such  an 
age. 

To  be  sure,  such  a  period  has  its  dangers. 
The  passion  for  wonder,  for  richness  of  life, 
for  movement  may  be  a  destroying  as  well 
as  a  constructive  force.  Elements  in  the 

32 


THE  QUEST  FOR  WONDER 


Xietzschean  view  of  life  may  work  to  tear 
down  ancient  sanctions  of  unspeakable 
value  to  the  race.  Panting  for  freedom,  we 
may  get  too  much  freedom.  Fighting  for 
liberty,  we  may  degenerate  into  license. 
The  man  who  would  revise  the  Ten  Com¬ 
mandments  and  repudiate  the  sanctities  of 
the  home  is  the  particularly  dangerous  devil 
of  the  new  movement.  The  solid  foundations 
of  things  may  he  tampered  with  by  enthusi¬ 
astic  amateurs  in  the  name  of  progressive 
thinking,  and  from  the  mechanical  uniform¬ 
ity  of  the  nineteenth  century  we  may  pass 
into  a  wild  lawlessness  in  the  twentieth.  The 
syndicalist  represents  a  spirit  which  does 
not  promise  good  to  the  practical  industrial 
life,  and  the  brothers  of  the  syndicalist  are 
ready  to  speak  in  many  avenues  of  modern 
activity.  The  danger  is  that  from  one  ex¬ 
treme  of  the  pendulum  we  will  swing  to  the 
other. 

IV 

The  goal  of  our  discussion  is  now  in  sight 
and  has  doubtless  already  become  clear  to 

a/ 

the  thoughtful  reader.  Stability  without 
wonder  gives  us  a  dead  and  mechanical 

33 


THE  QUEST  FOR  WONDER 


universe.  Wonder  without  stability  gives 
us  a  universe  undependable,  incoherent,  at 
last  chaotic.  Somehow  these  two  elements 
must  be  so  combined  that  unity  and  move- 
ment,  stability  and  wonder,  simplicity  and 
diversity  are  united  in  our  view  of  life.  In 
a  larger  and  more  adequate  way  the  task  of 
the  old  Greek  philosophers  of  reconciliation 
is  ours. 

We  may  make  a  few  suggestions  as  to  the 
lines  along  which  this  philosophy  of  united 
stabilitv  and  wonder  must  move. 

1.  It  must  begin  with  personality  and  not 
with  things  or  forces.  All  the  experience 
of  which  we  know  anything  at  first-hand  is 
personal,  and  from  this  vantage  ground  we 
must  survey  the  world.  Such  a  survey  will 
save  us  from  all  sorts  of  intellectual  and 
practical  confusions.  It  will  assume  free¬ 
dom,  initiative,  and  the  power  of  personal 
choice  and  purpose.  It  will  not  attempt  to 
make  a  recipe  for  freedom  or  to  construct  a 
formula  for  personal  choice.  It  will  under¬ 
stand  that  these  things  are  beyond  the  reach 
of  formulas,  and  that  whenever  a  man  tries 
to  make  a  formula  for  personal  activities  he 

34 


THE  QUEST  FOR  WONDER 


simply  proves  that  he  does  not  understand 
the  problem.  It  is  as  if  he  would  insist  on 
knowing  the  color  of  one  of  Beethoven’s 
sonatas,  or  the  sound  of  one  of  Turner’s 
paintings.  He  understands  that  personality 
as  a  matter  of  free  movement  in  rational 
choice  is  not  a  conclusion  but  a  necessarv 
assumption.  It  is  the  major  premise  of  the 
validity  of  experience.  He  does  not  try  to 
go  behind  this  necessary  assumption.  He 
sees  that  the  inevitable  result  would  be 
reasoning  in  a  circle.  Critical  insight  may 
discover  what  are  life’s  necessary  assump¬ 
tions,  but  it  cannot  demonstrate  them  by 
formal  logic.  The  task  of  philosophy  is  to 
see  what  tools  must  be  used  in  life’s  activities 
and  then  to  polish  them.  There  will  be  many 
mysteries,  but  the  tools  can  be  made  very 
sharp  and  effective. 

2.  It  will  be  seen  that  all  the  impersonal 
activities  and  energies  must  be  referred  at 
last  to  a  personal  source,  or  they  lose  all 
genuine  meaning.  A  force  or  a  law  is  only 
a  figure  of  speech  unless  it  is  a  description 
of  a  person  acting.  And  you  cannot  explain 
anything  by  an  empty  abstraction.  The 

35 


THE  QUEST  FOR  WONDER 


whole  range  of  uniformities  in  the  universe 
must  be  referred  at  last  to  a  conscious  per¬ 
sonal  intelligence  or  they  will  hang  empty 
in  the  air.  This  insight  lifts  the  thinker 
from  the  thought  of  human  personality, 
with  which  he  began,  to  the  thought  of  divine 
personality.  He  sees  that  the  only  way  to 
give  any  definite  meaning  to  an  ultimate 
force  is  by  seeing  that  it  is  the  activity  of 
an  ultimate  Person. 

3.  This  final  commanding  personality  is 
not  a  caretaker  in  the  palace  of  the  universe. 
He  is  not  a  furtive  servant  in  his  own  world. 
He  is  not  the  slave  of  the  system  of  things. 
He  is  an  imperial  master  and  moves  right 
royally  through  the  world.  He  is  the  highest 
expression  of  freedom.  He  is  freedom 
divinely  alive.  At  this  point  the  Calvinists 
had  noble  insight.  They  did  not  understand 
the  freedom  of  man,  but  they  did  under¬ 
stand  the  freedom  of  God.  They  knew  that 
an  uncoerced  Deity  on  the  throne  of  his 
own  freedom  was  the  necessary  background 
for  all  true  meaning  to  life.  This  concep¬ 
tion  of  divine  freedom  and  personality  and 
of  natural  law  as  just  a  name  for  the  way 

36 


THE  QUEST  FOR  WONDER 


in  which  a  free  person  acts,  secures  for  all 
time  the  wonder  and  movement  and  sur¬ 
prise  which  must  be  preserved  in  our  thought 
and  experience  of  life.  If  the  ultimate  fact 
is  a  free  personal  God,  rigid  mechanics  are 
forever  driven  from  the  throne  of  the  world. 
We  are  saved  from  the  tragedy  of  a  mental 
mechanism  like  Hegelianism.  We  are  saved 
from  the  tragedy  of  a  material  mechanism 
like  the  synthetic  philosophy.  We  live  in 
a  world  where  the  freshness  and  the  joy 
and  the  stimulus  which  only  freedom  at  the 
heart  of  things  can  give  are  forever  assured. 
A  personal  God  lordly  in  liberty  is  the 
security  of  the  wonder  of  the  world. 

This  freedom,  however,  is  an  ethical  free¬ 
dom.  It  is  always  mastered  and  dominated 
by  the  character  of  God.  It  is  not  the 
freedom  of  a  superape.  It  is  the  freedom 
of  a  righteous  and  holy  Deity.  This  is  the 
basis  of  the  uniformity  of  nature.  God  does 
not  play  tricks  with  his  world.  His  uni- 

because  he  is  an  orderly 
God.  The  stability  of  the  whole  vast  system 
of  things  rests  at  last,  not  in  any  rigid  or 
mechanical  necessity,  but  on  the  character 

37 


verse  is  orderly 


THE  QUEST  FOR  WONDER 


of  the  Almighty.  At  this  point  natural 
science  and  ethics  meet  and  science  is  trans¬ 
figured.  The  nineteenth  century  tried  to 
bring  ethics  down  into  the  categories  of 
natural  science.  The  twentieth  is  to  lift 
natural  science  into  the  categories  of  ethics. 
Thus  the  very  conception  of  a  free  personal 
God  which  secures  the  wonder  of  the  world 
because  of  his  character  as  a  righteous  and 
holy  Deity  also  secures  the  stability  of  the 
universe.  Unity  and  diversity  have  met  to¬ 
gether.  Monism  and  Pluralism  have  kissed 
each  other. 

The  character  of  God  also  secures  wonder, 
while  at  the  same  time  repudiating  supe>- 
stition.  It  is  always  an  ethical  wonder  which 
is  preserved.  Thus  with  one  stroke  the 
crass  and  wild  imaginations  of  the  ethnic 
faiths  and  all  the  puerilities  of  Roman  Cath¬ 
olic  superstition  are  destroyed.  Rome  has 
paid  a  dreadful  price  for  wonder  by  admit¬ 
ting  superstition.  The  view  we  are  analyzing 
admits  movement,  freedom,  and  wonder 
made  ethical  in  such  a  fashion  that  the  primi¬ 
tive  gladness  is  preserved  in  the  midst  of 
modern  knowledge,  the  childlike  surprise  is 

38 


THE  QUEST  FOR  WONDER 

preserved  in  the  intellectual  life  which  is  the 
highest  product  of  civilization. 

V 

In  conclusion  some  observations  must  be 
made  about  the  relation  of  the  Christian 
religion  to  these  fundamental  matters. 
Right  on  the  face  of  our  discussion  it  is 
clear  that  the  God  who  is  the  synthesis  of 
the  two  movements  we  have  been  discussing, 
who  holds  secure  the  unity  and  diversity, 
the  stability  and  the  wonder  of  the  world, 
would  have  just  the  characteristics  of  the 
Deity  whom  Christians  worship.  Christi¬ 
anity  is  a  religion  which  unites  stability  and 
ethical  wonder  in  the  interpretation  of  life. 

To  be  sure,  Christian  thinkers  have  not 
always  been  conscious  of  the  strategy  of 
their  position.  But  all  the  while  the  per¬ 
sonal  holy  God  revealed  in  the  life  of  which 
the  Old  and  New  Testaments  are  the  literary 
record,  was  the  possessor  of  the  character¬ 
istics  capable  of  being  made  a  solvent  in 
respect  of  this  most  difficult  problem  of 
philosophy  and  life.  And  in  a  practical  way 
Christianity  has  preserved  stability  and 

39 


THE  QUEST  FOR  WONDER 


wonder  in  many  an  age  when  its  own 
thinkers  were  not  fully  conscious  of  what 
was  going  on. 

The  philosophy  to  which  our  deepest 
needs  will  drive  us  is,  then,  in  a  very  pro¬ 
found  sense  a  Christian  philosophy.  What 
the  Christian  religion  brings  as  a  revelation, 
philosophy  will  translate  into  an  interpreta¬ 
tion  of  life. 

But  more  than  this.  What  philosophy 
can  state  as  a  matter  of  principles,  Christi¬ 
anity  translates  into  deeds.  The  incarnation 
of  the  Son  of  God,  and  his  human  life  divine, 
are  the  very  expression  in  concrete  activity 
of  that  for  which  we  have  been  contending. 
The  mighty  deed  of  sin-bearing,  by  which 
the  Son  of  God  in  profound  spiritual  fashion 
took  upon  himself  the  burden  of  the  sin  of 
the  world,  is  the  very  crystallization  into 
one  act  of  infinite  significance,  of  that  moral 
wonder  and  moral  stability  which  are  funda¬ 
mental  in  God  and  in  his  ruling  of  the  world, 
and  must  be  made  fundamental  in  the  life 
of  man.  In  all  ages  the  facts  of  the 
Christian  religion  have  been  enriching  the 
thought,  redeeming,  transforming,  and  en- 

40 


THE  QUEST  FOR  WONDER 

larging  the  life  of  men,  because  Christianity 
is  a  religion  of  stability  as  complete  and  sure 
as  the  character  of  God,  of  wonder  and 
surprise  as  amazing  as  his  infinite  freedom 
and  his  exhaustless  love.  Deeds  speak  more 
loudly  than  intellectual  interpretation  can 
ever  speak.  Bethlehem  and  Calvary  are  the 
security  of  the  stability  and  the  wonder  of 
the  world. 


41 


THE  PREACHER  AS  A  STUDENT 
OF  PHILOSOPHY 


CHAPTER  II 


THE  PREACHER  AS  A  STUDENT  OF 
PHILOSOPHY 

The  fascination  of  many  human  contacts 
may  rob  the  preacher  of  a  philosophy.  He 
lias  learned  that  life  has  no  thrill  like  the 
meeting  of  soul  with  soul.  To  go  through 
the  world  sensing  the  inner  quality  of  men’s 
struggle  and  pain  and  fear  and  bringing  to 
them  the  gift  of  understanding  sympathy 
and  divine  hope  has  become  an  experience 
of  constant  richness  and  wonder.  It  is  true, 
as  Browning  says,  that  it  is  “an  awkward 
thing  to  play  with  souls,”  but  to  deal  at 
first-hand  with  palpitating  human  lives  is 
so  strangely  compelling  an  experience  that 
everything  else  is  likely  to  seem  common¬ 
place  when  compared  with  it.  When  human 
life  and  sin  and  salvation  are  constantly  un¬ 
folding  themselves  before  a  man’s  surprised 
and  wondering  eyes,  in  dramas  of  which  he 
is  the  one  intimate  spectator,  this  kind  of 
experience  is  likely  to  become  the  engrossing 

4o 


THE  QUEST  FOR  WONDER 


matter  of  his  life.  In  all  this  he  may  have 
merely  an  artistic  and  dilettante  interest; 
even  a  preacher  may  be  caught  by  this  snare. 
But  if  he  comes  to  it  with  a  consuming  pas¬ 
sion  for  souls  and  a  commanding  sense  of 
God  in  his  own  life,  the  whole  experience 
will  be  lifted  into  high  moral  and  spiritual 
quality.  The  preacher  will  discover  that  this 
is  what  it  means  to  be  a  pastor,  and  being 
this  kind  of  pastor  makes  him  a  true 
preacher  and  gives  to  him  his  most  powerful 
and  effective  sermons.  Such  a  man  is  often 
tempted  to  be  impatient  with  his  study.  Its 
lamps  seem  dull  and  cold  beside  that  fierce 
light  which  falls  upon  human  life  as  he  sees 
it  at  first-hand.  He  is  tempted  to  be  par¬ 
ticularly  impatient  of  such  a  subject  as 
philosophy,  feeling  as  if  hours  spent  in  its 
study  are  robbed  from  human  beings  and 
given  to  mere  mummies  of  thought. 

Many  a  man  of  this  type  is  rather  proud 
of  the  fact  that  he  has  no  philosophy.  He 
pronounces  the  word  “metaphysical” — when 
he  does  deign  to  pronounce  it — with  a  de¬ 
tectable  accent  of  scorn.  He  is  busy  with 
actual  life  while  the  philosopher  is  engaged 

46 


A  STUDENT  OF  PHILOSOPHY 


with  intellectual  puzzles.  By  all  means  let 
the  philosopher  go  on  piecing  together  his 
tiny  fragments  of  thought  to  make  the  com¬ 
plete  picture.  If  he  finds  it  interesting,  there 
is  no  harm  in  it.  Still,  there  are  weightier 
matters  with  which  he  might  well  be  en¬ 
gaged.  Such  is  his  attitude.  This  superior 
feeling  which  the  practical  preacher  often 
shares  with  the  man  on  the  street,  as  regards 
this  matter  of  philosophy,  will  not  bear  close 
inspection,  as  natural  as  it  is.  Just  because 
he  is  so  close  to  life  the  practical  preacher 
is  often  its  victim  rather  than  its  master. 
He  lacks  largeness  of  view,  proportion  of 
thought,  mental  discipline — the  very  quali¬ 
ties  which  philosophic  study  would  give. 
And  again  and  again  life  simply  sweeps 
him  along  in  a  current  of  vital  and  master¬ 
ful  feeling  whose  real  significance  he  does 
not  understand.  He  is  alive  to  the  finger 
tips,  but  he  is  not  capable  of  farsighted  or 
dependable  leadership.  And  he  is  not  ca¬ 
pable  of  seeing  life  calmly  or  in  the  widest 
relations.  He  has  never  caught  even  as  an 
ideal  the  thought  of  seeing  life  steadily  and 
seeing  it  whole. 


47 


THE  QUEST  FOR  WONDER 


There  is  some  explanation  and  a  measure 
of  excuse  for  this  type  of  preacher,  how¬ 
ever,  when  we  compare  him  with  the  man 
who  has  nothing  but  a  philosophy.  He 
himself  has  made  the  comparison,  and, 
though  he  is  fairly  modest,  he  knows  that 
the  result  is  all  in  his  favor.  The  man  with 
nothing  but  a  philosophy  has  gone  with 
Ezekiel  into  the  valley  of  dry  bones.  He 
has  made  wonderful  collections  of  bones. 
He  has  fastened  them  together  properly 
with  little  wires  so  that  he  has  a  number  of 
skeletons,  instead  of  a  mass  of  separate  bones 
lying  about.  He  surveys  his  work  wTith 
pride.  It  is  scrupulously  correct  and  is 
really  very  wonderful.  But  it  has  never 
occurred  to  this  man  that  he  has  still  only 
a  collection  of  bones.  The  result  is  fit  for 
a  museum  but  not  fit  for  the  tasks  of  life. 
It  was  his  business  to  prophesy  to  these 
bones,  so  that  they  would  live,  with  vital 
organs  and  muscles  and  nerves,  with  flash¬ 
ing  eyes  and  quick  hands.  That  would  have 
been  a  mighty  work  indeed.  And  it  would 
have  answered  all  criticisms.  As  it  is,  he 
found  bones  and  he  has  bones  still,  only  care- 

48 


A  STUDENT  OF  PHILOSOPHY 


fully  classified  and  fitted  together,  according 
to  a  thoughtful  scheme.  The  vital,  dynamic 
preacher  instinctively  feels  a  certain  amount 
of  scorn  for  the  man  who  is  only  capable 
of  classifying  bones. 

The  picture  we  have  painted  is  not  over¬ 
drawn.  There  are  men  who  have  quite  lost 
contact  with  life,  in  the  midst  of  philosophic 
speculations.  They  ring  the  changes  on 
great  names  in  their  sermons,  but  they  have 
no  power  to  relate  what  they  are  thinking 
to  living  men  and  living  issues  in  a  living 
way. 

There  can  be  no  greater  mistake,  however, 
than  to  judge  the  significance  of  philosophic 
study  for  the  preacher  by  this  partly  arti¬ 
ficial,  partly  academic  product.  His  faults 
have  cast  a  shadow  on  a  noble  and  important 
study,  but  they  do  not  follow  organically 
from  its  pursuit.  We  must  judge  of  any 
study,  not  by  what  it  does  for  the  block¬ 
heads,  or  the  dilettantes,  or  the  polarized 
specialists,  but  by  what  it  does  for  real  men 
living  real  lives  and  relating  them  to  large 
and  far-reaching  and  vital  issues. 

Let  us  take  a  quick  survey  of  the  work 

49 


THE  QUEST  FOR  WONDER 


of  a  masterful  and  magnetic  man,  a  true 
preacher  of  the  gospel  with  a  living  faith  in 
Christ,  and  a  passionate  interest  in  men, 
and  let  us  see  by  a  few  glimpses  earnest 
and  discriminating,  even  if  in  a  sense  fleet¬ 
ing,  what  the  study  of  philosophy  will  do 
for  him. 

I 

He  is  a  student  of  philosophy,  first  as  a 
means  of  mental  discipline.  He  has  learned 
that  he  cannot  take  his  mind  as  a  matter  of 
course.  At  least  if  he  does,  it  will  run  away 
with  him.  It  is  like  a  wild  and  spirited 
steed  which  he  must  tame  and  master. 
It  has  all  sorts  of  odd  tricks  and  strange 
ways,  and  every  one  of  them  he  must  under¬ 
stand  if  he  is  to  use  his  steed  for  long 
intellectual  journeys.  It  will  draw  a  great 
load  of  thought  if  it  is  properly  trained,  but 
it  must  feel  the  bit  in  its  mouth  and  the 
hand  of  the  master  on  the  rein  all  the  while. 

Now,  for  the  revealing  of  what  the  mind 
is  like,  of  what  it  is  capable,  what  are  its 
limitations,  and  how  it  ought  to  be  used, 
there  is  no  study  like  philosophy.  Some¬ 
times,  it  is  true,  the  student  feels  that  he  is 

50 


A  STUDENT  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

watching  Don  Quixotes  fighting  imaginary 
battles  with  immense  zest  and  confidence, 
but  even  then  he  is  learning  much  about  the 
ways  of  the  mind  and  the  character  of 
thought.  The  failures  of  philosophy  have 
almost  as  much  to  teach  men  as  its  successes. 
If  poetry  is  a  revelation  of  the  human  heart, 
philosophy  is  a  revelation  of  the  human 
mind,  and  the  close  and  intimate  knowledge 
of  how  the  mind  has  worked  for  thousands 
of  years,  as  it  has  attacked  the  ultimate 
problems  of  existence,  is  of  the  greatest 
value  to  the  preacher.  Emerson  once  de¬ 
clared,  “All  that  Shakespeare  says  of  a  king, 
yonder  boy  reading  in  a  corner  feels  to  be 
true  of  himself.”  It  is  also  true  that  many 
of  the  things  a  preacher  learns  about  the 
movement  and  work  of  the  mind  in  his  philo¬ 
sophical  study  will  have  the  most  practical 
application  to  his  own  congregation.  Said 
a  thoughtful  but  not  widely  read  farmer  to 
Whittier,  “That  Mr.  Plato  had  a  good  many 
of  my  ideas.”  But,  more  than  this,  not 
simply  the  contents  of  active  minds  have 
these  unexpected  relations,  so  that  Hera¬ 
clitus  reappears  in  Bergson  and  Democritus 

51 


THE  QUEST  FOR  WONDER 

reappears  in  a  modern  scientist,  but  even 
more  the  habits  of  the  mind  have  a  universal 
likeness.  The  man  who  knows  philosophy 
in  a  free  and  understanding  way  knows  how 
the  mind  works.  Then  the  mental  elasticity 
and  sympathy  required  to  understand  the 
various  movements  of  philosophy  and  the 
habits  of  mind  expressed  in  them  are  all  the 
while  making  the  mind  of  the  student  a 
keen  and  sharpened  instrument  for  clear 
and  coherent  and  dependable  thought.  He 
is  not  only  learning  more  about  other  people 
so  that  he  can  deal  with  them  more  ade¬ 
quately.  He  is  learning  about  his  own  mind 
and  is  becoming  skilled  in  using  it.  Many  a 
mistake  which  wrould  once  have  been  very 
natural  now  becomes  impossible.  Many  a 
complex  situation  is  easily  dealt  with  by 
means  of  his  new  powers  of  thought.  Many 
a  difficult  feat  of  mental  achievement  comes 
quite  within  his  scope.  He  has  a  new  mental 
and  practical  mastery  because,  in  some 
measure,  he  is  lord  of  his  own  mind. 

II 

Then  the  preacher  studies  philosophy  for 

52 


A  STUDENT  OF  PHILOSOPHY 


the  methods  of  thought  he  may  learn.  Some 
men  have  scorned  philosophy  because 
philosophers  so  violently  disagree.  As  a 
matter  of  fact,  that  is  one  of  the  great  things 
about  philosophy.  A  distinguished  pro¬ 
fessor  of  theology  has  said  that  if  a  man  has 
one  commentary  on  a  book  of  the  Bible,  he 
is  in  a  sense  its  slave ;  but  if  he  has  two  com¬ 
mentaries,  they  are  sure  to  disagree,  and 
then  he  will  have  to  think  for  himself.  The 
same  thing  is  true  in  philosophy.  The  very 
disagreement  will  stimulate  the  student  to 
a  closer  scrutiny  of  the  methods 
such  diverse  conclusions  were  reached.  And 
all  the  while  he  will  be  unconsciously  mas¬ 
tering  the  utensils  of  a  variety  of  intellectual 
approach  and  appraisal.  As  the  reader  of 
Robert  Browning’s  The  Ring  and  the  Book, 
which  tells  the  same  story  from  ten  or  twelve 
different  points  of  view,  is  startled  out  of 
mental  provinciality,  so  the  student  of 
philosophy  finds  himself  changed  from  a 
man  of  one  or  two  tools  and  a  limited  in¬ 
tellectual  horizon  into  a  man  with  a  great 
collection  of  utensils  and  a  knowledge  of  how 
to  use  them  effectively.  Often  he  will  use 

53 


by  which 


THE  QUEST  FOR  WONDER 


his  tools  in  a  way  of  which  the  originator 
never  dreamed.  Aristotle  did  not  know  that 
he  was  preparing  a  mold  into  whose  forms 
Thomas  Aquinas  would  fit  the  theology  of 
the  Middle  Ages.  The  modern  pragmatist 
does  not  know  how  deft  an  instrument  he 
has  forged  for  the  justification  and  interpre¬ 
tation  and  proper  placing  of  Christian  ex¬ 
perience  in  an  adequate  philosophy.  In  all 
the  schools  of  thought  there  are  tools  wait¬ 
ing  for  the  use  of  alert  minds,  and  there  are 
methods  whose  possibilities  have  never  been 
fully  worked  out.  As  Bauer  applied  the 
Hegelian  thesis,  antithesis,  and  synthesis  to 
New  Testament  criticism,  so  many  a  philo¬ 
sophic  principle  is  yet  to  be  applied  to  con¬ 
crete  problems.  Even  when  the  result  is 
not  final  it  is  sure,  because  of  the  fresh  ap¬ 
proach,  and  new  placing  of  the  material  to 
throw  light — sometimes  a  veritable  flood  of 
light — upon  old  problems.  As  long  as  a 
man  is  taking  fresh  tools  from  the  foundries 
of  philosophy  he  will  be  in  no  danger  of 
that  deadly  dullness  which  carries  so  many 
men  to  their  intellectual  graves.  To  his 
sight  he  will  add  insight. 

54 


A  STUDENT  OF  PHILOSOPHY 


He  will  be  making  discoveries  and  grow¬ 
ing  all  the  while. 

Ill 

Coming  nearer  to  the  heart  of  the  matter, 
we  may  say  that  the  preacher  studies  phi¬ 
losophy  in  order  that  he  may  learn  how  the 
great  thinkers  have  interpreted  the  universe 
and  life.  He  comes  to  examine  conclusions 
as  well  as  to  learn  methods  of  thought. 
From  the  Ionian  school  of  Greek  thinkers, 
who  studied  things  rather  than  minds  or 
morals ;  from  the  Sophists,  who  so  interpreted 
minds  as  to  loosen  all  sense  of  moral  values ; 
from  Socrates,  who  rose  from  facts  to  “prin¬ 
ciples”;  from  Plato,  who  set  going  the 
processes  of  transcendental  idealism;  from 
Aristotle,  who  arranged  the  first  finely 
articulated  mental  cabinet  with  pigeonholes 
for  the  classification  of  all  forms  of  knowl¬ 
edge — from  these  and  from  many  others  all 
through  the  history  of  philosophical  thought 
the  preacher  is  learning  how  to  look  at  life 
through  vastly  different  eyes  from  his  own 
and  to  see  what  is  involved  in  all  these  differ¬ 
ent  world-views.  At  first  the  experience 

55 


THE  QUEST  FOR  WONDER 

seems  somewhat  kaleidoscopic,  but  as  the 
preacher  becomes  more  at  home  in  the  high¬ 
ways  and  byways  which  lead  through  the 
City  of  Philosophy,  he  finds  a  deep  human 
meaning  in  every  system,  and  a  palpitating 
heart,  as  well  as  a  ticking  mind,  expressing 
itself  in  what  at  first  seemed  hard,  cold 
thought  secreted  from  man’s  mind.  He 
takes  his  stand  at  various  spots  in  various 
ages  and  waits  mitil  the  masters  come  to 

think  and  how  they  feel 
about  life.  He  watches  the  grating  wheels 
of  Schopenhauer’s  pessimism  and  surveys 
the  vast  synthetic  movements  of  Hegel’s 
mind.  He  sees  how  some  men  have  been 
essentially  critical  in  their  sharpest  work 
from  the  time  of  Zeno.  He  sees  how  some 
men  are  born  builders,  like  Plato  construct¬ 
ing  a  house  for  the  mind.  A  new  sense  of 
the  vastness  and  wonder  of  life  comes  home 
to  him  as  he  surveys  these  glacial  movements 
of  far-reaching  thought.  He  feels  the  need 
of  various  types,  and  as  he  examines  system 
after  system,  each  having  some  contribution 
to  make,  he  develops  an  eclectic  mood,  feel¬ 
ing  that  the  final  system  must  be  large 

56 


tell  him  what  they 


A  STUDENT  OF  PHILOSOPHY 


enough  to  include  the  truths  which  have  been 
seen  and  proclaimed  by  all  these  men.  He 
also  develops  a  sharply  critical  mood.  The 
final  system  must  repudiate  many  a  false 
principle  and  many  a  false  conclusion.  A 
man  is  forced  to  discriminate  as  he  studies 
philosophy.  Looking  over  the  past,  the 
preacher  sees  that  some  men  have  never 
gotten  beyond  things — here  the  early  Greeks 
began,  and  here  they  remained;  some  think¬ 
ers  have  never  gotten  beyond  substance — 
the  Eleatic  mood  persists  as  an  inspiration 
and  in  a  measure  as  a  danger  in  every 
monistic  scheme;  some  men  have  never  got¬ 
ten  beyond  movement — Heraclitus  has  still 
his  votaries;  some  men  have  never  gotten 
beyond  the  individual — the  relativists  are 
still  in  the  land;  some  have  never  gotten 
beyond  principles,  not  realizing  that  a  prin¬ 
ciple  per  se  is  an  abstraction  which  itself 
must  be  explained — on  this  rock  the  Hegel¬ 
ians  came  to  grief;  some  men  never  get  be¬ 
yond  forces,  and  with  Herbert  Spencer  are 
in  danger  of  reaching  what  only  seem  ulti¬ 
mate  ideas  when  they  are  actually  carrying 
words  farther  than  the  words  can  carry 

57 


THE  QUEST  FOR  WONDER 

meaning.  At  a  certain  point  very  noble 
philosophies  become  verbal  unless  they  rise 
from  principles  and  forces  to  an  ultimate 
person.  It  is  when  he  reaches  personalism 
that  the  preacher  lifts  his  head.  Here  is  a 
system  large  enough  when  properly  con¬ 
strued  to  make  room  for  all  sorts  of  facts 
and  experiences,  and  to  set  all  in  the  light 
of  an  infinite  Person  of  moral,  mental,  and 
spiritual  perfection,  the  Lord  of  life.  The 
preacher  is  interested  in  all  the  systems,  but 
his  philosophical  journey  leads  to  a  grand 
terminal  at  last,  and  he  is  glad  when  his 
train  rolls  into  the  station  and  he  has  reached 
his  journey’s  end.  There  is  still  room  for 
no  end  of  study.  But  it  is  in  working  out 
the  implications  of  a  personal  philosophy 
and  not  in  finding  a  substitute  for  it. 

IV 

Furthermore,  the  preacher  studies  phi¬ 
losophy  because  of  its  influence  on  life.  The 
great  systems  are  not  merely  interpretations 
of  life.  They  are  powers  in  life.  They  are 
dynamic.  They  set  in  motion  new  machin- 

58 


A  STUDENT  OF  PHILOSOPHY 


ery.  The  buzzing  wheels  and  moving  belts 
of  life  are  connected  with  a  philosophical 
dynamo  far  more  frequently  than  we  realize. 
And  even  the  man  in  the  street  is  often  un¬ 
consciously  expressing  the  implications  of 
the  thought  of  some  philosopher,  of  whose 
name  he  may  never  have  heard.  If  you 
know  the  philosophical  background  of  his 
opinions,  you  understand  him  better  than  he 
understands  himself. 

The  influence  of  Aristotle  on  the  Middle 
Ages  was  deep  and  far-reaching.  When 
walking  in  an  American  city  you  sometimes 
see  the  large  steel  framework  of  a  building, 
standing  in  striking  relief  while  it  waits  for 
each  separate  story  to  be  built  in.  Such  a 
framework  Aristotle  furnished  for  much 
that  was  significant  of  the  thought  of  the 
Middle  A  ges.  The  very  existence  of  the 
LTiited  States  of  America  is  in  one  way  re¬ 
lated  to  a  series  of  philosophical  movements. 
You  must  understand  deism  with  its  confi¬ 
dence  in  human  nature,  and  you  must  under¬ 
stand  the  French  philosophy  of  the  latter 
part  of  the  eighteenth  century  if  you  would 
understand  the  Declaration  of  Independ- 

59 


THE  QUEST  FOR  WONDER 


ence,  and  some  of  the  most  influential  prin¬ 
ciples  which  entered  into  the  life  of  the  re¬ 
public. 

Sometimes  a  philosophical  system  dwarfs 
the  life  of  the  man  who  holds  it.  And  such 
a  system  may  take  from  the  vitality  and 
vigor  of  the  life  of  a  country  or  of  an  age. 
When  the  rigid  principles  of  a  system  are 
put  on  the  throne  in  such  a  fashion  that  a 
man  does  not  dare  to  do  anything  which  the 
system  does  not  justify,  life  is  robbed  of 
freshness  and  initiative  and  power.  Then 
a  man  wears  his  philosophy  as  a  prisoner 
wears  chains.  He  is  no  longer  a  free  man. 
He  looks  out  on  the  world  from  behind  the 
bars  of  his  point  of  view.  As  the  preacher 
sees  these  things  he  comes  to  understand  that 
principles  are  to  be  used  as  servants  and  not 
as  tyrannical  masters.  They  are  to  be  used 
as  teachers  and  not  as  slave-drivers.  And 
sometimes  the  best  tribute  a  student  can  pay 
to  his  teacher  is  to  disagree  with  him.  This 
does  not  mean  that  the  individual  thinker  is 
to  be  lawless.  It  means  that  his  loyalty  to 
commanding  principles  is  the  loyalty  of  a 
free  man  to  whom  life  is  larger  and  more 

60 


A  STUDENT  OF  PHILOSOPHY 


dominant  than  the  relentless  absolutism  of 
formal  logic.  As  Oliver  Wendell  Holmes 
so  brilliantly  suggests  in  “The  One-Hoss 
Shay,”  there  are  times  when  to  be  perfectly 
logical  is  to  be  perfectly  absurd.  Thus  the 
preacher  comes  to  understand  the  possibili¬ 
ties  of  danger,  as  well  as  the  possibilities  of 
great  good  in  the  influence  of  philosophy 
upon  life. 

V 

All  this  leads  us  naturally  to  our  next 
consideration,  namely,  that  the  alert 
preacher  studies  philosophy  because  the  life 
of  any  period  inevitably  creates  a  philosophy, 
inevitably  eventuates  in  a  philosophical  ex¬ 
pression  and  interpretation. 

The  scientific  developments  of  the  nine¬ 
teenth  century  in  large  measure  created  the 
synthetic  philosophy  of  Herbert  Spencer. 
Darwin  expressed  a  principle  in  one  field. 
Spencer  made  it  the  ultimate  principle  of 
existence,  the  commanding  feature  of  his 
philosophy.  The  pointing  out  of  the  defects 
of  such  a  system  never  destroys  it  as  long 
as  the  system  answers  to  something  deep  and 
real  in  the  life  of  a  period.  There  will  be 

61 


THE  QUEST  FOR  WONDER 


men  whose  working  theory  of  life  is  based  on 
the  principles  of  the  synthetic  philosophy 
long  after  Spencer  has  been  discredited  as  a 
philosophic  master  among  all  adequately 
critical  minds.  There  is  something  about 
the  processes  of  practical  scientific  work 
which  is  caught  completely  by  Spencer.  The 
scientist’s  use  of  law  as  a  working  hypothesis 
exactly  corresponds  to  Spencer’s  sense  of 
law.  The  stars  in  their  courses  seem  to  fight 
for  the  synthetic  philosophy.  It  is  only  as 
we  realize  that  life  itself  is  treated  cavalierly, 
that  large  territories  of  human  experience 
are  ignored  by  Spencer,  that  a  genuine  re¬ 
action  sets  in.  It  is  as  the  vital  streams  rise 
and  overflow  their  banks  that  philosophical 
inadequacies  are  swept  away.  Thus  life  is 
the  final  critic  as  well  as  the  creator  of 
philosophies. 

All  this  is  clearly  illustrated  in  the  phi¬ 
losophy  of  Rudolf  Eucken,  in  that  of 
Henri  Bergson,  and  in  the  methods  of  the 
pragmatists.  In  the  closest  and  most  power¬ 
ful  and  fully  conscious  way,  life  rather  than 
technical  logic  is  master  in  these  newer  move¬ 
ments.  What  has  often  happened,  without 

62 


A  STUDENT  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

the  philosophers’  actually  understanding 
what  was  going  on,  here  happens  with  the 
philosophers,  full  knowledge  and  consent. 
These  present  schools  set  up  the  flag  of  life 
and  will  fight  under  that  standard  against 
all  comers.  They  see  that  majestic  systems 
have  sapped  life  of  its  vital  energies,  have 
proved  but  parasitic  growths,  and  they 
bring  against  them  all  the  weapons  which 
a  deep  antagonism  can  procure.  Life  itself 
must  be  given  the  right  of  way.  Philosophy 
must  be  made  large  enough  to  fit  the  facts 
of  life,  and  life  must  never  be  allowed  to 
shrink  to  fit  the  capacity  of  a  particular 
system.  By  Eucken  in  particular  it  is  clearly 
seen  that  the  spiritual  vitalities  of  life  must 
not  only  be  given  place  in  philosophy,  but 
they  must  determine  the  character  of  the 
philosophy. 

To  the  evangelical  preacher  all  this  is  full 
of  a  deep  encouragement.  He  knows  that 
his  Christian  experience  is  the  defining  fact 
of  his  life,  and  he  feels  at  once  kinship  with 
thinkers  who  insist  that  philosophy  shall  be 
as  large  as  experience,  even  if  they  have  not 
understood  the  significance  and  implications 

G3 


THE  QUEST  FOR  WONDER 


of  Christian  experience.  He  can  use  their 
principles  often  when  he  cannot  accept  their 
positions.  To  live  in  an  age  when  technical 
rules  are  being  made  subservient  to  the  pal¬ 
pitating  realities  of  life  is  the  supreme 
philosophical  opportunity  of  a  Christian 
thinker. 

VI 

Then  the  preacher  studies  philosophy 
because  even  philosophical  errors  indicate  an 
intellectual  need  which  must  be  met  and 
satisfied  in  some  more  adequate  way.  A 
brilliant  theologian  once  said,  “A  heresy  is 
a  genuine  hunger  eating  the  wrong  fruit.” 
This  is  eminently  true  of  the  errors  of 
philosophy.  Nature  has  a  way  of  taking 
sudden  and  startling  revenge  on  that  which 
is  one-sided.  To  go  against  nature  in  this 
regard  is  to  court  disaster.  There  comes  a 
sudden  cataclysm  and  the  thing  we  had  ruled 
out  breaks  in  with  tyrannous  force.  This 
is  seen  in  individual  lives,  in  nations,  and  in 
systems  of  thought.  Excesses  are  produced 
by  the  omissions  and  inadequacies  of  power- 
fid  and  influential  systems.  The  new  system 
swings  to  the  very  extreme  of  the  pendulum 

64 


A  STUDENT  OF  PHILOSOPHY 


with  terrific  force.  Over  against  an  ascetic 
interpretation  of  life  you  have  a  wild  and 
lawless  Sybaritic  philosophy.  Over  against 
a  hard  and  cold  intellectualism  comes  a 
philosophy  which  so  emphasizes  the  practical 
that  it  ignores  the  proper  claims  of  the  intel¬ 
lect.  Whenever  a  legitimate  element  is 
ruled  out  of  one  system  it  is  sure  to  become 
an  excess  in  the  emphasis  of  another.  The 
thinking  of  a  particular  skeptic  is  often 
psychologically  a  protest  against  systems 
which  did  not  give  rationality  its  dues.  The 
extravagances  of  mystical  philosophy  are  a 
reaction  from  a  barren  and  rigid  rationalism. 
These  things  stand  out  in  sharp  perspective 
in  the  mind  of  the  preacher  as  he  critically 
inspects  the  defects  of  the  various  philo¬ 
sophic  interpretations.  There  is  always  a 
truth  waiting  to  be  rescued  from  the  heart 
of  every  error. 

The  knowledge  of  these  things  does  not 
give  the  preacher  a  kindly  and  hospitable 
feeling  toward  errors.  He  knows  that  they 
are  all  the  more  dangerous  because  of  the 
truth  which  they  shelter.  This  makes  them 
respectable  and  gives  them  a  hearing.  Obvi- 

65 


THE  QUEST  FOR  WONDER 


ous  error  would  not  be  dangerous  at  all.  So 
the  careful  detecting  of  the  truth  in  an  error, 
and  the  separating  of  the  truth  from  the 
error,  is  a  moral  as  well  as  a  spiritual  task. 
It  is  one  which  comes  especially  within  the 
province  of  the  preacher. 

This  knowledge  of  the  way  in  which  error 
and  truth  get  entangled,  though  it  does  not 
make  the  preacher  a  friend  of  error,  does 
give  him  a  new  patience  with  earnest  men 
who  become  confused  and  accept  views  of 
whose  evil  consequences  they  have  no  notion. 
He  sees  how  they  came  to  hold  these  views, 
and  the  good  thing  in  them  which  must  be 
conserved  when  the  views  themselves  are 
cast  away.  And  all  this  enables  him  to  be 
a  pastor  of  men’s  minds  in  a  sense  which  was 
quite  impossible  before.  He  gives  men  a 
feeling  that  he  possesses  understanding 
sympathy  even  when  he  approaches  their 
beliefs  with  a  surgeon’s  knife. 

VII 

The  preacher  also  studies  philosophy 
because  he  knows  that  Christianity  involves 
a  philosophy  as  wqll  as  a  life.  He  knows 

66 


A  STUDENT  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

that  if  Christianity  is  true,  some  philosoph¬ 
ical  systems  must  be  in  essence  false.  And 
he  knows  that  if  Christianity  is  true,  some 
philosophical  positions  are  permanently  and 
conclusively  established.  He  detects  in  our 
time  a  tendency  to  believe  that  you  can  be 
a  Christian  with  your  heart  and  your  hand 
without  being  a  Christian  with  your  head, 
or,  to  put  it  in  the  words  of  an  able  theolo¬ 
gian,  “a  tendency  to  accept  the  spirit  while 
discarding  the  philosophy  of  Christianity.” 
This  tendency  to  establish  a  dualism  in  the 
Christian  religion  he  recognizes  as  a  danger¬ 
ous,  though  often  unconscious,  antagonist 
of  the  Christian  faith  and  life.  Christianity 
must  be  intellectually  commanding  if  it  is  to 
be  morally  convincing  or  spiritually  satisfy¬ 
ing.  In  this  sense  there  is  such  a  thing  as  a 
Christian  philosophy,  and  a  sure  and  definite 
command  of  its  sanctions  and  the  fashion 
in  which  they  articulate  to  form  the  basis  of 
Christian  belief  the  preacher  desires  to  ob¬ 
tain.  Here  his  acutest  mental  and  moral 
and  spiritual  insight  is  required.  He  has 
come  to  grapple  with  ultimate  problems 
upon  which  the  vastest  issues  hang.  Just 

67 


THE  QUEST  FOR  WONDER 


because  he  is  a  Christian  with  a  mind  which 
insists  on  its  rights  he  is  driven  into  phi¬ 
losophy.  And  when  he  attains  a  mastery  of 
those  final  verities  upon  which  morals  and 
religion,  and  even  rationality,  hang,  he  has 
reached  the  meeting  place  of  mind  and  heart 
and  conscience,  in  a  philosophy  which  makes 
him  have  a  message  as  a  preacher  which 
combines  the  elements  which  nature  unites 
in  a  man,  and  religion  brings  to  their  full¬ 
ness  through  the  power  of  God.  Even 
Albrecht  Ritschl  once  admitted  that  if  you 
shut  metaphysics  out  of  the  front  door,  it 
will  come  in  at  the  rear.  The  men  who  have 
tried  to  do  without  metaphysics  have  had 
to  produce  metaphysics  in  order  to  justify 
their  doing  without  it.  An  unphilosophic 
Christianity  is  always  in  process  of  commit¬ 
ting  intellectual  suicide. 

Of  course  philosophy  as  a  substitute  for 
vital  experience  is  one  thing,  and  needs  to 
be  repudiated.  Philosophy  as  the  crystal¬ 
lization  of  vital  experience  is  another,  and 
must  be  conserved.  The  skeleton  does  not 
have  to  be  visible  to  the  naked  eve  because 
it  is  a  necessary  part  of  the  human  organism. 

68 


A  STUDENT  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

And  philosophy  does  not  need  to  be  on  dress 
parade  all  the  while  because  it  is  an  essential 
part  of  religion.  But  for  all  that,  the  Chris¬ 
tian  religion  without  a  loyal  allegiance  to  its 
philosophical  postulates  is  as  much  of  a  con¬ 
tradiction  as  is  a  human  body,  in  perfect 
health  and  performing  all  its  functions, 
without  any  bones. 

VIII 

Last  of  all,  the  preacher  studies  philoso¬ 
phy  in  order  that  he  may  have  a  philosophy 
of  his  own.  Dr.  Robert  William  Dale  spoke 
potently  of  experiencing  theism.  By  a 
powerful,  dynamic  Christian  preacher  his 
whole  philosophy  may  be  passed  through 
his  own  experience  and  come  forth  blazing 
with  the  fires  of  his  own  life.  As  Paul  said 
“my  gospel,”  so  he  becomes  able  to  say  “my 
philosophy.”  His  philosophic  position  as  a 
Christian  is  not  merely  a  classification  of 
objective  truths.  It  is  objective  truth  be¬ 
come  real  in  subjective  experience. 

Professor  Borden  P.  Bowne  in  his  per¬ 
sonal  idealism  rendered  a  service  to  the 
Christian  thinking  of  our  time  of  the 

69 


THE  QUEST  FOR  WONDER 


utmost  value.  His  trenchant,  critical  mind 
bombarded  ancient  fallacies  with  a  sureness 
and  skill  of  the  most  extraordinary  char¬ 
acter.  And  his  constructive  work  offers  a 
view  of  the  universe  where  personality  in 
God  and  man,  moral  freedom  and  responsi¬ 
bility,  the  dominance  of  the  spiritual,  and 
the  coherence  of  physical,  rational,  ethical, 
and  religious  in  a  rich  and  roomy  monism, 
with  an  ultimate  person  on  the  throne,  are 
all  secured. 

With  all  his  services  perhaps  Professor 
Bowne  had  one  limitation.  He  does  not 
give  you  the  sense  of  a  triumphant  experi¬ 
ence  of  his  own  philosophy.  It  is  splendidly 
effective  in  its  critical  aspects,  nobly  ade¬ 
quate  in  its  constructive  work,  but  it  remains 
objective.  It  does  not  become  a  subjective 
passion  in  the  mind  and  the  heart  of  the 
author.  It  is  correct  rather  than  in  the 
highest  sense  kindling.  All  this  is  said  in 
no  spirit  of  disparagement  of  Professor 
Bowne.  We  owe  him  too  much  for  that  to 
be  possible.  It  is  said  as  a  matter  of  point¬ 
ing  out  the  way  in  which  his  own  work  should 
be  carried  on  by  his  successors.  Fill  his 

70 


A  STUDENT  OF  PHILOSOPHY 


system  with  the  fire  of  a  noble  mysticism  and 
a  sharper  evangelical  passion,  and  it  will 
move  out  to  become  more  commanding  and 
more  efficient  than  it  has  ever  been  in  the 
past. 

At  any  rate,  the  preacher  must  take  this 
final  step  in  regard  to  his  philosophy.  It 
must  become  not  merely  truth,  but  truth 
with  summoning  eyes,  truth  with  a  strong 
hand,  truth  with  a  throbbing  heart,  and  in 
this  triumphant  experience  of  his  own  phi¬ 
losophy,  the  student,  the  preacher,  the  Chris¬ 
tian  of  spiritual  passion,  the  devoted  pastor, 
and  the  alert  practical  man  meet  and  become 
one.  The  philosophy  has  become  an  evangel. 


71 


BERGSON,  AS  SEEN  FROM  A 
PREACHER’S  STUDY 


CHAPTER  III 


BERGSON,  AS  SEEN  FROM  A  PREACHER  S 

STUDY 

I.  The  Standpoint  of  a  Preacher  in 
Philosophic  Study 

Many  a  preacher  has  no  attitude  toward 
the  study  of  the  course  of  philosophic  specu¬ 
lation.  He  simply  ignores  the  whole  sub¬ 
ject.  He  is  interested  in  practical  matters. 
He  cares  more  about  men  than  men’s  ideas. 
He  cares  more  about  life  than  philosophy. 
He  is  entirely  engrossed  with  the  effort  to 
be  an  efficiency  expert  as  regards  the  matter 
of  winning  and  holding  men  for  the  king¬ 
dom  of  God,  and  administering  the  affairs 
of  his  church  with  skill  and  success.  His 
laboratory  is  life;  his  experiment  station  is 
human  experience.  He  gets  his  sermons 
from  a  constant  and  hearty  human  contact, 
illuminating  his  study  of  the  Bible.  He 
knows  how  to  press  the  gospel  home  to  the 
hearts  of  men.  He  speaks  with  the  accents 
of  vigorous  and  robust  life.  He  makes  no 

75 


THE  QUEST  FOR  WONDER 


pretensions  to  being  a  scholar,  but  he  is  an 
effective  evangelist  as  well  as  a  preacher. 
Scattered  over  the  country  you  find  this 
type,  in  quiet  hamlets  and  in  thriving  cities. 
The  church  owes  a  real  debt  to  this  expert  in 
religion,  even  when  he  is  a  man  who  would 
soon  get  lost  in  discussing  ideas  about 
religion. 

It  is  quite  easy  to  see,  however,  that  this 
type  of  man  fails  of  the  highest  efficiency. 
To  care  immensely  about  everything  that 
pertains  to  men  except  their  mental  life  is 
an  incomplete  devotion.  To  be  an  evangelist 
for  the  saving  of  men’s  souls  without  a  mas¬ 
tering  message  for  their  minds  is  to  perform 
an  inadequate  service.  The  man  who  speaks 
to  less  than  the  whole  life  can  never  be  the 
most  effective  evangelist,  and  he  is  sure  to 
be  inadequate  in  the  wider  ministries  of 
pastoral  service. 

On  the  other  hand,  many  a  preacher  is 
more  interested  in  ideas  than  he  is  in  people. 
He  can  outline  the  course  of  Greek  phi¬ 
losophy  more  easily  than  he  can  follow  the 
winding  paths  by  means  of  which  a  strug¬ 
gling  man  finds  his  way  to  peace.  He  gets 

76 


BERGSON 


his  knowledge  of  life  second-hand;  the  fresh 
currents  set  in  motion  by  actual  human  con¬ 
tact  do  not  throb  through  him.  He  has 
separated  the  mind  from  all  the  rich  and 
diversified  experience  of  the  remainder  of 
the  life,  and  so  his  message  is  likely  to  be¬ 
come  dignified  and  wise  and  impotent.  To 
preach  only  to  the  mind  is  as  great  a  mistake 
as  to  fail  entirely  to  appeal  to  the  mind. 
The  distrust  of  the  “philosophic  preacher” 
is  entirely  a  repugnance  for  the  type  of 
utterance  which  has  intellect  but  is  without 
the  blood  of  life.  It  is  one  thing  to  describe 
the  evangel  with  cold  precision;  it  is  quite 
another  to  preach  it,  with  intellectual  ade¬ 
quacy  and  also  with  a  burning  heart. 
Thought  and  feeling  belong  together. 

The  most  effective  preacher  has  the  virtues 
and  shuns  the  weaknesses  of  the  two  types 
we  have  been  analyzing.  He  is  a  man  of 
men  and  a  man  of  ideas.  He  is  a  student  of 
books  and  a  student  of  people.  He  is  at 
home  in  philosophy,  and  he  is  at  home  in  a 
human  heart.  Deeper  than  this,  the  real 
preacher  is  always  a  man  of  God.  He  does 
not  leave  his  piety  behind  when  he  picks  up 

77 


THE  QUEST  FOR  WONDER 


a  book  of  philosophy.  He  takes  all  there  is 
of  him  into  every  intellectual  endeavor  of 
his  life.  His  Christian  experience  has  a 
position  of  defining  power  in  every  intel¬ 
lectual  exploration  which  raises  questions  of 
moment  as  to  life  and  destiny. 

This  is  a  matter  of  supreme  importance. 
Perhaps  we  can  best  put  it  in  this  way: 
When  it  comes  to  the  study  of  philosophy 
the  preacher  is  both  the  judge  and  a  part  of 
the  evidence.  The  peril  and  the  strategy 
of  his  situation  lie  in  this  fact.  He  is  the 
judge,  for  he  must  study  and  weigh  and 
appraise  the  system.  With  perfect  candor 
and  honesty  he  must  take  account  of  all  that 
it  has  to  say.  But  he  does  not  approach  the 
task  without  presuppositions.  An  open 
mind  is  not  an  empty  mind.  He  himself  is 
a  part  of  the  evidence  to  be  considered.  His 
own  experience  is  part  of  the  data  to  be 
taken  account  of.  The  philosophy  he  ac¬ 
cepts  must  be  big  enough  to  make  room  for 
his  personal  experience  of  salvation  through 
Jesus  Christ  his  Lord.  All  the  facts  and 
energies  which  have  to  do  with  the  new  life 
in  Christ  must  find  a  comfortable  home  in 

78 


BERGSOX 


the  philosophy  which  he  makes  his  own.  He 
never  tries  to  make  his  experience  shrink  to 
fit  his  philosophy.  It  is  the  business  of  a 
philosophy  to  organize  and  interpret  the 
facts  of  experience,  not  to  change  or  distort 
them.  And  the  preacher  knows  that  his 
Christian  experience  is  as  defining  as  any 
fact  of  life. 

This  does  not  mean  that  he  is  narrow¬ 
minded.  It  does  not  mean  that  he  is  a  bigot. 
It  does  not  mean  that  he  is  unwilling  to 
accept  new  truth.  It  just  means  that  he 
has  such  a  complete  sense  of  the  true  scien¬ 
tific  method  that  he  will  insist  that  all  the 
facts  must  be  faced.  As  an  unclassified 
flower,  if  it  had  a  voice,  might  say  to  a 
botanist,  “You  must  take  account  of  me”; 
as  a  strange  insect  with  bright  wings  might 
sav  to  the  scientist  who  scrutinized  it,  “You 
must  alter  your  classification  to  make  room 
for  me”;  as  any  physical  or  chemical  fact 
has  the  right  of  way  through  any  speculative 
theory,  so  a  Christian  experience  and  all  the 
facts  and  truths  involved  in  it  have  the  right 
of  way.  The  preacher  with  the  real  experi¬ 
ence  of  these  things  in  his  life  has  a  perfect 

79 


THE  QUEST  FOR  WONDER 


right  to  say  to  the  philosopher,  “No  system 
is  adequate  which  does  not  make  room  for 
me. 

And  the  making  room  must  be  of  a  char¬ 
acter  which  leaves  all  the  creative  power  and 
moral  splendor  of  a  Christian  experience 
intact.  To  explain  a  Christian  experience 
in  such  a  way  that  you  make  its  repetition 
impossible  is  in  effect  to  deny  it.  To  inter¬ 
pret  a  Christian  experience  in  such  a  way 
that  the  man  who  accepted  the  interpretation 
could  never  experience  the  moral  invigora- 
tion  and  spiritual  renewal  of  such  an  ex¬ 
perience  is  to  distort  an  important  series  of 
facts.  It  is  utterly  unworthy  of  the  spirit 
of  candid  scientific  procedure. 

These  things  the  preacher  holds  firm  in 
his  mind  as  he  approaches  the  study  of 
philosophy.  He  sharpens  his  mind  with 
every  discipline  in  philosophic  research.  He 
is  open  to  new  truth  everywhere.  But  he 
never  forgets  that  he  has  in  his  own  experi¬ 
ence  some  defining  truth  which  must  have 
commanding  place  in  the  final  philosophic 
synthesis.  He  is  both  the  judge  and  a  part 
of  the  evidence.  And  he  never  forgets  his 

80 


BERGSON 


significance  as  evidence  while  he  is  thinking 
of  his  duties  as  judge. 

II.  The  Modern  Philosophic  Situation 

When  we  attempt  to  get  at  the  heart  of 
the  modem  philosophic  situation  a  thousand 
clamorous  voices  cry  for  a  hearing.  Many 
of  them  are  characterized  by  loudness  rather 
than  by  importance,  and  our  task  is  to  find 
those  few  defining  assertions  which  gave  its 
quality  to  the  thought  of  the  time.  Bent  on 
this  quest,  we  soon  discover  that  philosophy 
in  the  nineteenth  century  was  much  like  a 
great  feast  at  which  a  certain  Banquo’s 
ghost  insisted  on  appearing  just  when  the 
guests  had  settled  down  comfortably  to  en¬ 
joy  themselves.  The  feast  was  wonderfully 
well  set  out,  the  viands  included  every  deli¬ 
cacy  of  the  mind  and  much  that  was  sub¬ 
stantial  as  well.  But  the  ghost  had  a  way 
of  taking  one’s  appetite.  Sometimes  the 
feast  was  given  by  one  philosophic  school 
and  sometimes  by  another.  But  still  the 
ghost  wT>uld  appear  at  the  most  disconcert¬ 
ing  and  inopportune  times. 

It  has  not  proved  too  difficult  to  think 

81 


THE  QUEST  FOR  WONDER 


the  universe  into  unity  and  coherency,  but 
somehow  you  make  it  a  machine  in  the 
process.  The  ghost  is  the  ghost  of  necessity. 
Just  when  everything  is  well  arranged  and 
properly  classified,  you  find  that  you  do  not 
have  a  living  organism  but  a  dead  machine. 
There  is  no  fault  to  find  with  the  classifica¬ 
tion  except  that  life  has  slipped  through  it 
and  escaped.  Movement  and  change  in  any 
living  sense  are  forever  done  for.  You  were 
seeking  a  palace  of  the  mind  and  you  have 
found  a  sarcophagus. 

The  whole  materialistic  philosophy  of  the 
century  just  gone  is  one  illustration  in  point. 
Expressed  with  wonderful  brilliancy  and 
skill  in  the  synthetic  philosophy  of  Herbert 
Spencer,  it  fairly  captured  the  imagination 
of  thousands  of  men.  A  far-flung  battle  line 
the  synthetic  philosophy  spread  out  with  all 
of  life  and  all  of  the  universe  and  all  that 
comes  within  the  range  of  experience  as  the 
object  of  its  mastery.  Nobody  could  deny 
the  power  of  the  brain  that  worked  out  the 
system.  Nobody  could  deny  the  splendid 
powers  of  observation  and  generalization 
shown  by  the  system  itself.  But  just  as 

82 


BERGSON 


everybody  was  enjoying  the  feast  the  ghost 
appeared.  The  system  was  seen  to  account 
for  everything  else  in  existence  by  denying 
the  one  thing  which  makes  existence  itself 
worth  while.  Freedom  was  politely  bowed 
out  of  the  universe.  Personality  was  made  a 
mechanical  device  and  not  a  matter  of  free 
intention.  There  were  ultimate  forces,  but 
they  belonged  to  a  great  universal  mecha¬ 
nism  of  moving  belts  and  revolving  wheels. 
As  far  as  intention,  purpose,  and  free  move¬ 
ment  are  concerned,  where  the  names  were 
kept  the  reality  had  vanished.  The  body  of 
life  had  been  dissected  but  the  soul  had 
escaped. 

It  was  not  hard  to  point  out  internal  con¬ 
tradictions  in  the  system.  It  was  not  hard 
to  show  that  it  implicitly  assumed  the  very 
things  it  later  denied.  It  was  clear  that  you 
could  never  account  for  the  synthetic  phi¬ 
losophy  itself  on  the  basis  of  its  own  postu¬ 
lates.  To  build  such  a  system  required  the 
very  free  mental  movement  which  the  system 
denied. 

All  this  was  true,  but,  deeper  than  this, 
the  system  was  an  attack  on  life  itself.  It 

83 


THE  QUEST  FOR  WONDER 


robbed  men  of  the  sense  of  freedom  and 
responsibility,  of  creative  energy  and  full¬ 
ness  of  power.  It  sapped  the  roots  of  morals 
and  religion.  In  dealing  with  physical  facts 
it  refused  to  take  account  of  the  most  out¬ 
standing  facts  of  the  mental  and  moral  and 
religious  experience  of  the  race.  It  was 
unconsciously  an  attempt  to  dam  up  the 
movement  of  life  itself.  Of  course  the 
mighty  river  simply  rose  above  the  dam  and 
swept  on.  There  was  some  devastation  in 
the  process,  but  life  could  not  be  impeded. 
No  philosophy  can  survive  which  lifts  a 
defiant  hand  in  the  face  of  life  itself. 

Another  characteristic  expression  of  phil¬ 
osophic  speculation  might  seem  to  promise 
more.  The  Hegelian  philosophy  did  not 
begin  with  things.  It  began  with  thought. 
It  entered  the  sanctuary  of  the  mind  and 
took  its  own  process  as  its  guide.  The  thesis 
and  antithesis  and  synthesis  of  the  Hegelian 
philosophy  were  an  attempt  to  make  the 
logical  movement  of  the  thought  process 
itself  the  explanation  of  the  problems  of 
existence.  Here  is  surely  a  lofty  idealism. 
Now  the  great  things  of  mind  and  spirit 

84 


BERGSON 


will  come  to  their  own.  Thought  is  on  the 
throne  and  the  blighting  power  of  material¬ 
ism  has  been  overthrown.  It  is  a  severely 
intellectual  feast  at  which  the  Hegelians  sit 
down.  All  is  moving  with  lofty  propriety 
when  suddenly  the  ghost  appears.  It  cannot 
be!  Yes,  indeed,  it  is  the  same  old  ghost  of 
necessity.  We  have  escaped  from  the  lion 
to  confront  the  bear.  We  have  escaped 
physical  necessity  to  find  mental  necessity. 
The  universe  is  still  a  big  machine,  only 
now  it  is  a  mental  machine  instead  of  a 
physical  machine.  Thought  proves  as  re¬ 
lentless  a  tyrant  as  things,  and  life  and  free¬ 
dom  and  any  real  responsibility  are  again 
banished  from  the  universe. 

A  system  built  on  logic  instead  of  on  a 
logician  is  sure  to  prove  a  system  of  neces¬ 
sity.  Hegelianism  worshiped  logic  and  left 
the  logician  quite  out  of  account.  It  bowed 
down  before  thought  and  enunciated  prin¬ 
ciples  which  made  a  free  and  responsible 
and  living  thinker  forever  impossible. 

Here  again  it  is  easy  to  find  technical 
errors  and  contradictions.  But  here  again 
the  deeper  matter  is  that  the  system  was  a 

85 


THE  QUEST  FOR  WONDER 

defiance  of  living  experience  and  not  an  ex¬ 
pression  of  it.  Life  was  dwarfed;  all  its 
facts  were  not  faced.  The  biggest  experi¬ 
ences  of  men  were  left  out  of  the  circle  of 
the  truth  as  it  is  in  Hegelianism.  The  men 
who  tried  to  live  in  the  system  wore  it  like 
chains.  The  great  currents  of  life  swept 
past  it.  Intellectual  necessity  proved  as  im- 
j^otent  as  physical  necessity  to  be  specu¬ 
latively  satisfying  to  men. 

Here,  then,  we  have  the  typical  nine¬ 
teenth-century  movements  as  far  as  the 
widest  influence  and  power  are  concerned, 
and  both  of  them  strikingly  failing  to  meet 
the  demands  of  life.  Were  there  no  voices 
of  revolt?  Were  there  no  prophets  of  the 
currents  of  life  itself?  Did  the  goddess 
Necessity  call  and  ordain  all  who  spoke  in 
the  courts  of  Philosophy? 

The  answer  is  that  there  were  right 
vigorous  and  notable  voices  of  protest.  In 
America  Professor  Borden  P.  Bowne, 
through  a  long  and  notable  career  at  Boston 
University,  was  a  voice  crying  in  the  wilder¬ 
ness,  in  the  name  of  a  personal  interpreta¬ 
tion  of  the  universe,  with  the  freedom  of  a 

86 


BERGSON 


personal  agent  as  the  final  and  decisive  fact. 
In  England  Dr.  Hastings  Rashdall  gave 
forth  a  system  of  personal  philosophy  with 
genuine  kinship  to  that  of  Professor  Bowne, 
and  so  in  the  two  great  English-speaking 
nations  the  voice  speaking  for  free  and  un¬ 
coerced  personal  agency  at  the  heart  of 
things  was  heard.  In  Germany  Professor 
Rudolf  Eucken  carefully  worked  out  and 
gave  forth  his  philosophy  of  Activism. 
Essentially  his  thinking  is  another  protest  in 
the  name  of  life,  it  is  another  voice  crying, 
“Life  itself  has  the  right  of  way.” 

In  both  England  and  America  the  prag¬ 
matists  joined  the  protesting  voices.  Prag¬ 
matism  may  mean  either  a  method  or  a 
philosophy,  or  both.  But  it  always  means 
an  appeal  to  life.  Everything  must  go 
down  before  life.  If  logic  lies  wounded  and 
helpless,  the  pragmatists  will  do  nothing, 
providing  life  goes  on  its  way,  full  of 
strength  and  power,  unattacked  and  un¬ 
harmed.  Among  these  voices  of  protest  one 
of  the  very  most  potent  is  that  of  Bergson. 
He  is  the  great  leader  in  France  of  the 
revolt  from  Necessity,  and  his  voice  has 

87 


THE  QUEST  FOR  WONDER 


become  one  of  worldwide  significance  and 
influence. 

III.  The  Philosophy  of  Bergson 

Henri  Bergson  is  a  Parisian  by  birth  and 
is  now  fifty-six  years  of  age.  Educated 
at  the  Lvcee  Condorcet  and  the  Ecole 
Normale  Superieure,  his  early  interest  was 
mathematics,  and  he  later  graduated  in 
philosophy.  He  spent  seventeen  years 
teaching  in  various  schools,  and  in  1900  was 
appointed  to  a  professorship  of  the  College 
de  France,  which  professorship  he  now 
occupies.  In  1901  he  was  elected  a  member 
of  the  Institute. 

“To  say  that  his  lectures  have  made  him 
world  famous  and  that  men  of  many  coun¬ 
tries  and  races  flock  to  the  somber  lecture 
room  of  the  old  College  de  France  is  to  give 
a  fair  indication  of  the  tremendous  and  al¬ 
most  protean  influence  of  Bergsonism.  His 
is  the  largest  lecture  room  the  college  can 
boast,  but  not  nearly  large  enough  to  ac¬ 
commodate  the  polyglot  crowd  of  both  sexes 
that  gathers  every  Wednesday”  (E.  Her¬ 
mann  in  Eucken  and  Bergson). 

88 


BERGSON 


Bergson’s  style  is  a  marvel  of  lucidity, 
precision,  and  charm,  and  his  illustrations 
are  of  a  felicity  which  fills  his  hearers  with 
glad  surprise.  His  power  of  thought  is 
easily  equaled  by  his  skill  in  expression.  The 
following  of  Bergson’s  works — and  they 
include  his  most  important  utterances — have 
been  translated  into  English:  Time  and  Free 
Will,  1910  (published  in  French  in  1888)  ; 
Matter  and  Memory,  1911  (in  French, 
1896)  ;  Creative  Evolution,  his  fullest  and 
most  thoroughgoing  exposition  of  his  phi¬ 
losophy,  1911  (in  French  in  1907)  ;  Laugh¬ 
ter,  1911  (in  French,  1901). 

The  preacher  who  wants  to  know  some¬ 
thing  of  Bergson  will  do  well  to  begin  with 
IT.  Wildon  Carr’s  little  book,  Henri  Berg¬ 
son,  The  Philosophy  of  Change  (in  The 
People’s  Books,  published  in  New  York,  by 
the  Dodge  Publishing  Co.).  This  he  may 
follow  with  Mrs.  E.  Hermann’s  brilliant 
and  powerful  study,  Eucken  and  Bergson 
(The  Pilgrim  Press).  Then  he  should 
plunge  directly  into  the  Creative  Evolution 
itself. 

Now,  what  is  Bergson’s  distinctive  posi- 

89 


THE  QUEST  FOR  WONDER 


tion  as  a  philosopher,  and  how  does  he 
approach  the  problems  which  existence  and 
experience  present  to  us?  We  may  best 
begin  with  his  conception  of  time,  for  here 
he  strikes  a  distinctive  note.  The  historic 
conception  of  time,  he  tells  us,  is  really  time 
translated  into  space.  When  we  speak  of 
time  we  mean  the  things  that  happen  and 
not  the  duration  itself.  And  because  of  this 
slipping  into  one  meaning  when  we  use 
another  word,  all  sorts  of  confusion  arise. 
Time  becomes  a  contradicting  conception  or 
a  mere  mental  form  when  viewed  in  this  way. 
But,  according  to  Bergson,  the  very  thing 
which  escapes  us  when  we  speak  of  time  is 
the  vital  thing  not  only  in  time  but  in  ex¬ 
istence.  The  experience  of  duration  is  the 
fundamental  fact  of  life.  We  experience 
duration  as  a  movement  of  which  we  are 
deeply  conscious  in  our  moments  of  extreme 
intuitive  sympathy.  And  this  movement  of 
duration  with  which  we  are  one  in  our 
deepest  sense  of  life  is  the  very  stuff  of  which 
reality  is  made.  Because  of  this  position 
Bergson  has  been  called  the  modern 
Heraclitus. 


90 


BERGSON 


The  idealist  begins  with  thought,  and  does 
not  know  what  to  do  with  things.  The 
realist  begins  with  things  and  never  success¬ 
fully  makes  his  peace  with  thought.  Berg¬ 
son  begins  with  that  experience  of  change 
of  which  both  thought  and  things  are  as¬ 
pects  and  so  finds  a  tertium  quid  by  means 
of  which  he  can  deal  with  both. 

This  fundamental  movement  is  infinitely 
larger  than  human  experience,  though  by 
intuition  we  feel  our  oneness  with  it.  And 
this  ceaseless,  changing  duration  is  the  last 
fact  of  reality  and  the  basis  of  knowledge. 
This  great  movement  is  like  a  vital  energy 
pushing  its  way  to  complete  expression  and 
coming  out  in  various  ways.  The  slumber 
of  the  plant,  the  instinct  of  the  animal,  and 
the  knowledge  of  man  are  various  burstings 
forth  of  this  vital  moving  energy.  The 
intellect  is  man’s  organ  for  dealing  with  ex¬ 
perience.  It  takes  snapshots,  as  it  were,  of 
the  rapidly  moving  train.  These  snapshots 
are  very  useful,  but  for  philosophic  pur¬ 
poses  they  are  always  misleading.  In  the 
picture  the  train  is  always  standing  still.  It 
is  of  the  very  nature  of  the  intellect  that  it 

91 


THE  QUEST  FOR  WONDER 


must  seem  to  bring  creation  to  a  standstill 
in  order  to  apprehend  it.  Rut  for  all  that, 
the  fundamental  characteristic  of  existence 
is  the  one  which  the  snapshot  does  not  reveal. 

Is  there  any  way,  then,  by  which  we  can 
get  at  reality?  Is  the  intellect  merely  a 
practical  tool  which  leaves  us  helpless  when 
we  approach  the  great  philosophic  prob¬ 
lems?  The  reply  is  that  our  own  conscious¬ 
ness  is  larger  than  intellect.  There  is  a 
fringe  of  consciousness  which  does  not  take 
snapshots  but  knows  itself  as  one  with  the 
movement  of  life.  We  must  seize  this  fringe, 
this  intuition  of  the  movement,  and  here  we 
shall  find  genuine,  if  fleeting,  knowledge  of 
reality  itself.  The  deep  sense  of  oneness 
with  the  changing  movement  of  duration  is 
the  fundamental  fact  for  philosophy. 

This  movement  is  an  endless  creative 
activity.  It  does  not  look  ahead.  But  it 
does  carry  all  the  past  with  it  in  the  illu¬ 
minated  action  of  the  present.  The  process 
of  evolution  is  not  toward  a  foreseen  goal. 
It  is  a  fresh,  creative  output,  always  bring¬ 
ing  forth  something  new.  After  the  new  is 
brought  forth  you  can  fit  it  into  a  scheme. 

92 


BERGSON 


But  there  was  no  scheme  beforehand.  It  is 
utterly  free,  entirely  full  of  creative  energy, 
a  great  current  which  perpetually  changes 
and  continually  creates. 

Reality  is  the  movement.  Thought  is  a 
snapshot  which  sees  it,  or  a  section  of  it,  at 
a  standstill.  Matter  is  the  section  we  seem 
to  see  but  is  really  a  part  of  the  movement. 
Intuition  is  the  experience  of  oneness  witli 
the  movement.  This  mighty  vital  push,  the 
very  self  of  duration,  the  very  heart  of 
change,  is  the  ultimate  reality.  It  is  free, 
it  is  creative. 

The  intellect  is  an  organ  for  dealing  with 
aspects  of  the  movement  in  a  practical  way. 
It  is  of  practical  value  just  because  it  en¬ 
ables  us  to  see  sections  at  a  standstill,  so 
that  we  can  deal  with  life;  but  because  the 
soul  of  the  movement  slips  away  from  the 
grasp  of  the  intellect,  it  can  never  in  its  own 
strength  build  up  an  adequate  philosophy. 
The  systems  of  physical  mechanism  and 

intellectual  mechanism  are  what  they  are 

%/ 

because  of  this  fact.  The  intellect  sees  things 
in  a  mechanical  way.  But  the  larger  sense 
of  reality  which  intuition  gives  us  opens  the 

93 


THE  QUEST  FOR  WONDER 


door  to  the  true  philosophy.  When  we  ex¬ 
perience  our  oneness  with  the  creative  move¬ 
ment  we  have  at  last  reached  the  defining 
fact  of  existence.  We  have  touched  reality 
itself. 

IV.  Features  of  Bergson's  Philosophy 
of  Service  to  the  Christian 
Thinker 

The  preacher  who  reads  Bergson  soon 
feels  that  there  is  a  certain  mood  about  his 
philosophy  which  has  very  real  kinship  with 
the  mood  of  the  preacher.  Deeper  than 
that,  again  and  again  there  is  a  ring  about 
the  very  phrases  of  Bergson  which  is  like 
the  ring  of  human  experience  as  is  recog¬ 
nized  in  the  preacher’s  mind  and  heart.  The 
sense  of  movement,  of  activity,  of  stir,  of  a 
universe  in  which  things  happen  corresponds 
to  the  deepest  knowledge  and  intuitions  of 
the  preacher  himself.  The  trouble  about 
mechanical  interpretations  of  the  universe 
is  just  at  this  point.  They  leave  no  room 
for  anything  really  to  happen.  There  is  no 
room  for  tragedy.  There  is  no  room  for 
comedy.  It  is  a  closed  universe  with  room 

94 


BERGSON 

for  nothing  but  a  careful  system  of  pigeon¬ 
holes. 

Bergson  from  the  start  gives  you  the 
feeling  that  his  philosophy  strikes  the  note 
of  life  itself.  The  consciousness  of  creative 
energy  in  a  man’s  soul  is  answered  to  by  the 
placing  of  creative  energy  at  the  heart  of 
philosophy.  Then  the  emphasis  on  freedom 
is  most  welcome  to  the  Christian  thinker. 
He  is  tired  of  being  a  practical  believer  in 
freedom  and  a  theoretic  believer  in  necessity. 
The  philosophy  of  Bergson  gives  a  world  of 
initiative,  of  uncoerced  movement,  a  world 
where  no  frowning  physical  or  logical  laws 
leave  freedom  to  perish  among  the  wastes  of 
thought.  The  kingliness  of  freedom  is  recog¬ 
nized  in  Bergson’s  philosophy  as  perhaps 
it  has  never  been  recognized  before.  Then 
the  sense  of  great  things  to  come  is  welcome 
to  the  Christian  thinker.  Life  is  not  finished. 
The  world  is  not  completed.  The  creative 
energy  is  now  at  work.  We  are  not  spec¬ 
tators,  watching  the  curtain  fall  on  the  last 
act.  We  are  participants,  and  we  may  well 
believe  that  the  great  action  is  yet  to  come. 
A  splendid  optimism  naturally  flows  from 

95 


THE  QUEST  FOR  WOXDER 


such  a  philosophy.  Again,  the  emphasis  on 
activity  fits  the  thought  of  the  preacher.  It 
helps  a  man  to  believe  in  effort.  It  sets  free 
initiative.  It  sends  a  man  forth  to  do  and  to 
dare.  He  is  a  part  of  a  universe  in  action, 
and  he  himself  may  realize  some  of  its  won¬ 
derful  potencies.  Last  of  all,  the  emphasis 
on  the  sympathetic  intuition  which  puts  us 
within  the  circle  of  reality  in  a  sense  impos¬ 
sible  to  pure  intellect  is  welcome  to  the 
Christian.  His  own  Christian  experience 
has  just  this  quality  at  its  highest,  and  he 
is  glad  to  find  philosophy  recognizing  the 
validity  of  the  sympathetic  intuition,  which 
he  knows  may  be  the  saint’s  sense  of  God, 
as  well  as  the  philosopher’s  sense  of  oneness 
with  the  movement  of  duration.  The  atmos¬ 
phere,  then,  and  many  of  the  contentions  of 
Bergson’s  philosophy  come  to  the  preacher 
in  his  study  as  assets  he  is  glad  to  receive. 

V.  Features  Which  Cause  the  Chris¬ 
tian  Thinker  to  Hesitate, 
Question,  and  Criticise 

All  that  we  have  said  is  by  no  means 
intended  to  suggest  that  Bergson  is  a  Chris- 

96 


BERGSON 


tian  philosopher.  He  often  gives  the  Chris¬ 
tian  thinker  tools  which  he  himself  would 
never  dream  of  using  in  the  way  which  im¬ 
mediately  suggests  itself  to  the  Christian. 
Bergson  is  very  eager  about  consciousness 
and  creative  energy.  But  does  he  lift  them 
to  the  place  where  he  makes  them  our  secure 
possession?  Does  he  see  that  these  things 
are  only  figures  of  speech  unless  they  are 
the  characteristics  of  a  person  ?  Does  he  see 
that  the  push  of  creative  evolution  must  be 
the  conscious  intention  of  a  mighty  personal 
agent?  Does  he  know  that  his  own  enthusi¬ 
astic  propaganda  hangs  ready  to  fall  back 
into  necessity,  for  all  his  fine  phrases,  unless 
he  lifts  it  clear  and  clean  by  recognizing  the 
personal  agency  which  is  one  with  the  crea¬ 
tive  movement  of  duration? 

We  are  not  able  to  make  an  affirmative 
reply  to  these  questions.  Bergson  is  eager 
to  save  freedom  and  creative  energy  and 
fullness  of  life,  but  he  has  not  yet  been  will¬ 
ing  to  find  their  security  in  the  clear  and 
definite  recognition  that  active  personal 
agency — the  activity  of  God — is  the  heart 
of  the  whole  matter. 


97 


THE  QUEST  FOR  WONDER 


Now,  unless  we  rise  from  what  Bergson 
gives  us  to  this  higher  conception,  we  cannot 
permanently  hold  the  ground  for  which  he 
so  valiantly  fights.  Many  of  his  noblest 
passages  become  mere  figures  of  speech,  un¬ 
less  we  put  living,  active  personality  back 
of  them  for  their  support.  This  hesitancy 
about  personality  is  united  with  other  fail¬ 
ures  to  discriminate  closely.  Bergson  has 
what  we  may  almost  call  a  great  antipathy 
to  final  causes.  But  a  free  personal  agent 
may  be  able  to  preside  over  the  movement 
just  because  he  is  the  movement  and  makes 
his  intention  potent.  The  freedom  of  the 
movement  is  the  freedom  of  the  personality 
who  is  the  movement,  and  while  a  freely 
chosen  goal  toward  which  the  whole  creation 
moves  may  present  difficulties  to  the  mind, 
they  are  outweighed  by  the  greater  difficul¬ 
ties  attending  any  other  conception.  Final 
causes  are  not  our  foes  but  our  friends. 

If  we  make  personal  agency  in  free  and 
self -chosen  action  the  core  of  the  movement 
of  creative  evolution,  we  shall  escape  the 
snares  which  beset  the  path  in  which  Berg¬ 
son  is  now  walking. 


98 


BERGSON 


VI.  Is  There  Such  a  Thing  as  a 
Christian  Philosophy? 

Of  course,  there  is  a  sense  in  which  phi¬ 
losophy  may  not  be  called  Christian  any 
more  than  may  mathematics.  There  are 
aspects  of  experience  whose  interpretation 
is  as  much  apart  from  religion  as  the  fact 
that  two  and  two  are  four.  In  many  a  range 
of  its  speculations  philosophy  is  dealing  with 
things  which  do  not  belong  to  morals  or  to 
religion.  But  when  we  come  to  the  deepest 
matters  of  life  and  destiny,  Christian  ex¬ 
perience  has  implications  of  which  philoso¬ 
phy  must  take  account.  The  metaphysical 
implications  of  Christian  experience  are  far- 
reaching.  They  include:  1.  A  personal  God. 
2.  A  personal  revelation.  3.  An  Incarna¬ 
tion  of  the  Son  of  God  in  human  life.  4.  A 
world  presided  over  by  the  will  of  its  per¬ 
sonal  Deity,  o.  A  divine  deed  of  suffering 
rescue.  6.  A  goal  for  life  secured  by  the 
character,  the  purposes,  and  the  will  of  God. 

Now,  a  philosophy  which  makes  room  for 
these  facts  will  be  transformed  by  them.  It 

them.  They  will  be- 
99 


will  be  dominated  by 


THE  QUEST  FOR  WONDER 


come  the  defining  facts  of  the  system.  In 
this  sense  we  have  a  right  to  speak  of  a 
Christian  philosophy.  And  from  this  stand¬ 
point  we  must  say  that  Bergson  offers  many 
materials  which  may  be  used  in  a 
tian  interpretation  of  the  universe  and  all 
the  phenomena  of  existence  and  life.  But 
we  must  add  that  his  own  use  of  his  mate¬ 
rials,  as  thus  far  seen,  leaves  out  of  account 
many  of  those  supreme  facts  which  the 
Christian  thinker  can  never  ignore. 


truly  Chris- 


100 


THE  RELIGION  OF  A 
SCIENTIFIC  MAN 


CHAPTER  IV 

THE  RELIGION  OF  A  SCIENTIFIC  MAN 

Is  science  the  friend  or  the  foe  of  reli¬ 
gion  ?  It  depends  a  great  deal  on  the  science. 
It  depends  much  on  the  religion.  It  de¬ 
pends  most  of  all  on  the  man  who  is  trying 
to  make  a  place  in  his  life  for  the  postulates 
of  science  and  the  sanctions  of  a  religious 
experience. 

That  particular  scientific  views  have  made 
religion  impossible  to  some  men  cannot  be 
denied.  That  particular  religious  views 
have  caused  some  men  to  refuse  to  give  a 
candid  and  open  hearing  to  modern  science 
is  equally  true.  That  we  live  in  a  period 
when  there  is  no  end  of  confusion  and  heart¬ 
searching  and  brain-searching,  when  the 

wav  of  faith  is  often  difficult  and  the  wav 
**  «/ 

of  doubt  is  often  easy,  is  patent  to  every 
thoughtful  man.  It  is  also  fairly  clear  that 
the  religious  obscurantists  add  to  the  diffi¬ 
culty  and  practical  perplexity.  It  is  certain 
that  some  types  of  scientific  dogmatists 

103 


THE  QUEST  FOR  WONDER 


throw  dust  in  the  air  just  when  we  most 
need  to  see  clearly.  And  the  mystics  who 
ignore  the  whole  problem,  as  they  go  off 
with  their  beatific  visions,  sometimes  succeed 
in  saving  the  beatific  visions  by  a  method 
which  makes  it  impossible  for  them  to  help 
those  who  feel  most  the  perplexity  of  the 
problem.  Perhaps  we  can  best  analyze  the 
situation  and  come  to  see  some  of  the  light 
which  is  ready  to  fall  on  the  dark  places  by 
following  the  history  of  a  hypothetical  man 
who  goes  through  the  typical  experiences 
as  regards  science  and  religion  which  the  life 
and  thought  of  our  time  are  likely  to  bring 
about.  It  may  be  that  no  one  man  has  ever 
passed  through  all  these  stages  according  to 
schedule,  but  many  men  have  passed  through 
some  one  of  the  typical  experiences  we  shall 
discuss,  and  the  whole  situation  will  stand 
out  best  if  we  follow  an  imaginary  man 
through  the  whole  circuit  of  attitudes  which 
are  outstandingly  characteristic  of  our  time. 

I.  The  Period  of  Unquestioning  Faith 

The  boyhood  memories  of  many  a  scien¬ 
tific  man  bring  up  a  time  of  simple  and 

104 


A  SCIENTIFIC  MAX 


beautiful  and  undisturbed  faith.  Mr. 
Alfred  Noyes,  in  that  sharply  penetrating 
poem  “The  Old  Sceptic,”  describes  the  com¬ 
ing  back  of  such  memories  as  these : 

I  will  go  back  to  my  home  and  look  at  the  wayside 
flowers, 

And  hear  from  the  wavside  cabins  the  sweet  old 

* 

hymns  again, 

Where  Christ  holds  out  his  arms  in  the  quiet  evening 
hours, 

And  the  light  of  the  chapel  porches  broods  on  the 
peaceful  lane. 

x4nd  there  I  shall  hear  men  praying  the  deep  old 
foolish  prayers, 

And  there  I  shall  see  once  more  the  fond  old  faith 
confessed, 

And  the  strange  old  light  on  their  faces  who  hear  as 
a  blind  man  hears — 

Come  unto  me ,  ye  weary ,  and  I  will  give  you  red. 

I  will  go  back  and  believe  in  the  deep  old  foolish  tales. 

And  pray  the  sweet  old  prayers  that  I  learned  at 
my  mother’s  knee, 

Where  the  Sabbath  tolls  its  peace  throughout  the 
breathless  mountain-vales, 

And  the  sunset’s  evening  hymn  hallows  the  listening 
sea. 

There  are  many  homes  yet  to  he  found  in  the 

•/ 

world  where  the  sense  of  God  and  Christ  is 

105 


THE  QUEST  FOR  WONDER 

as  sharp  and  clear  as  the  sense  of  the  father 
and  mother,  and  a  great  series  of  homes  like 
that  which  Burns  describes  with  such  simple 
eloquence  in  “The  Cotter’s  Saturday  Night” 
are  to  be  found  in  widely  scattered  lands; 
and  such  homes  form  the  golden  chain  which 
binds  the  world  about  the  feet  of  God.  The 
boy  reared  in  a  home  like  this  breathes  in 
piety  as  he  breathes  the  air.  He  does  not 
reach  after  belief  as  an  attainment.  He  has 
it  as  a  part  of  the  very  structure  of  his  life. 
The  Bible  speaks  to  him  with  the  high  and 
awful  authenticity  of  the  voice  of  God  even 
as  it  speaks  with  the  winsome  tenderness 
of  the  Man  of  Galilee.  Prayer  is  a  radiant 
reality  which  has  been  interpreted  to  him 
by  the  shining  of  his  mother’s  face  and  the 
glow  of  deep  communion  which  he  has  seen 
in  his  father’s  eyes.  The  life  of  the  home 
is  all  shot  through  and  transformed  by  the 
practical  power  of  religion.  It  is  a  life  as 
well  as  a  creed,  an  experience  as  well  as  a 
belief.  Mind  and  heart  and  will  together  are 
seeking  to  work  out  the  divine  behests.  The 
church  has  a  tender  and  beautiful  sanctity, 
and  worship  has  an  alluring  summons.  The 

106 


A  SCIENTIFIC  MAN 


home  interprets  the  church  and  the  church 
inspires  the  home.  All  is  simple  and  clear 
and  nobly  beautiful.  The  sunset  glory  and 
the  verdure-clad  hills  and  the  power  of 
Christ  are  all  experienced  and  undisputed 
facts  of  life.  The  early  years  spent  in  such 
a  home  will  give  color  to  all  the  after  time 
of  a  man’s  experience.  He  may  journey  far 
into  paths  of  questioning  and  doubt,  and 
may  even  come  to  dwell  in  places  of  positive 
unbelief,  but  he  can  never  quite  get  away 
from  the  fact  that  he  has  known  religion 
from  within.  The  noblest  skepticism  of  the 
nineteenth  century  was  characterized  by  this 
regretful  and  pensive  memory  of  the  joys 
and  hopes  lost  to  the  life  for  evermore. 

II.  The  Period  When  Science  Seems 
to  Make  Faith  Impossible 

Forth  from  such  a  home  as  this  the  youth 
of  eager  and  alert  mind  and  buoyant  heart 
goes  to  find  his  place  in  the  intellectual  life 
of  the  world.  Often  his  home  has  been  a 
sheltered  spot,  undisturbed  by  the  mighty 
tempests  beating  out  their  fury  upon  the 
sea.  The  faith  of  his  father  and  mother 

107 


THE  QUEST  FOR  WONDER 

has  been  as  simple  and  naive  as  his  own. 
They  have  never  felt  the  tug  and  the  strain 
of  the  age’s  questioning.  In  their  quiet 
cove,  protected  by  mountains  of  strong  be¬ 
lief,  they  have  never  felt  the  danger  of  the 
tempests  raging  upon  the  unresting  sea. 
The  son  goes  forth  to  be  a  sailor.  He  leaves 
the  sheltered  spot  of  his  boyhood.  He  feels 
the  wind  upon  his  brow.  His  ship  must 
meet  the  tempest.  The  old  mountains  are 
far  away.  He  meets  the  first  crisis  of  his 
life.  To  drop  the  figure,  the  keen-brained 
candid  youth  comes  face  to  face  with  the 
positions  of  modern  science.  He  learns  to 
know  the  names  and  the  work  of  the  great 
scientific  leaders  of  the  nineteenth  century, 
who  gave  out  a  new  universe  and  a  new  set 
of  formulas  for  life.  He  is  introduced  to  a 
new  appraisal  of  the  facts  of  the  world.  He 
becomes  familiar  with  the  reign  of  law.  The 
new  thoughts  appeal  to  his  mind  and  fire  his 
imagination.  The  vast  universe  to  which 
scientific  investigation  introduces  him,  all 
held  in  the  steel-like  clasp  of  a  great  system 
of  law,  is  a  mental  spectacle  of  solemn 
grandeur.  There  is  an  almost  religious 

108 


A  SCIENTIFIC  MAN 

thrill  in  the  thought  of  the  far-lying  worlds 
all  subject  to  the  control  of  inflexible  and 
immutable  law.  If  he  looks  through  a  tele¬ 
scope  he  sees  more  law-mastered  worlds.  If 
he  looks  through  a  microscope,  and  begins 
to  investigate  the  infinitely  small,  here  again 
is  a  universe  in  miniature  held  in  the  same 
inescapable  grasp  of  law.  Accompanying 
this  study  of  the  reign  of  law  comes  the 
knowledge  of  those  vast  generalizations 
which  science  has  uttered  in  the  attempt  to 
explain  the  universe.  Some  form  of  the 
nebular  hypothesis  dazzles  his  imagination 
and  compels  his  mental  assent  as  an  account 
of  how  the  worlds  came  to  be.  In  the  cosmos 
he  sees  the  far-lying  grandeur  of  a  great 
process  of  evolution.  Coming  to  the  earth 
itself,  geology  and  biology  speak  out  right 
confidently  of  an  age-long  process  by  means 
of  which  the  world  came  to  be  what  it  is 
and  the  present  forms  of  life  developed 
from  forms  infinitely  more  simple.  From 
movements  in  an  inchoate  universe  of  dif¬ 
fused  substance  which  evolved  into  planets, 
on  to  the  full  completeness  of  civilized  man, 
there  is  an  unbroken  process  of  evolution, 

109 


THE  QUEST  FOR  WONDER 


the  expression  of  a  completely  mastering 
system  of  law.  The  more  he  knows  of  vari¬ 
ous  sciences,  the  more  does  this  view  become 
all-embracing.  He  is  in  a  vast  system  with 
no  place  for  breaks  or  gaps.  The  reign  of 
law  is  the  first  and  last  word.  And  the 
process  law  is  working  out  may  be  described 
by  one  magic  wrord — evolution. 

As  time  goes  on  it  becomes  increasingly 
evident  that  this  self -working  system  is  not 
the  friend  of  religion.  The  reign  of  law 
takes  the  place  of  the  reign  of  God.  Piety 
is  still  very  beautiful,  but  it  has  no  founda¬ 
tion  in  the  system  of  things.  The  old  boy¬ 
hood  faith  has  all  of  its  early  charm,  but  it 
has  ceased  to  command  mental  allegiance. 
At  first  the  young  man  with  his  growing 
mind  struggles  against  such  conclusions.  He 
repudiates  their  very  suggestions.  There 
must  be  some  way  to  reconcile  the  reign  of 
law  and  the  reign  of  God.  He  tries  to 
believe  that  at  great  crises  in  the  life  of  the 
universe  God  stepped  in  and  did  something; 
but  more  and  more  he  finds  the  gaps  are 
filling  up.  The  system  is  like  some  monster 
which  devours  everything  in  sight.  The 

110 


A  SCIENTIFIC  MAN 


day  comes  when  the  student  faces  the  fact 
that  his  scientific  view  of  the  universe  is  a 
complete  thing  with  no  breaks  at  all.  He 
realizes  bitterly  the  significance  of  the  words 
of  the  brilliant  skeptic  who  desired  to  take 
God  to  the  edge  of  the  universe  and  bow 
him  out,  with  thanks  for  past  services,  be¬ 
cause  he  was  no  longer  needed. 

While  all  this  has  been  going  on,  and  the 
young  man  has  been  coming  into  fuller  and 
fuller  knowledge  of  a  system  of  law  without 
any  breaks  anywhere,  from  another  angle 
his  faith  has  been  weakened.  He  has  become 
acquainted  with  the  results  of  modern 
critical  biblical  scholarship.  He  had  been 
brought  up  to  believe  in  an  inerrant  Bible. 
He  beholds  it  lying  in  fragments  at  his 
feet.  He  becomes  interested  in  the  processes 
of  critical  analysis  of  biblical  documents  and 
the  frank  appraisal  of  all  their  problems, 
and  soon  finds  the  conclusions  of  such  inves¬ 
tigations  compelling  his  allegiance.  The 
Bible  and  the  religion  of  which  it  is  the 
literary  exponent,  become  a  part  of  a 
system  of  perfectly  natural  evolution.  He 
has  lost  God  out  of  the  world  of  nature.  He 

111 


THE  QUEST  FOR  WONDER 

has  lost  him  out  of  the  Bible.  The  universe 
has  become  a  vast  mechanism  with  no  room 
for  God  anywhere.  All  this  produces  heart¬ 
ache  enough.  The  world  has  become  very 
lonely  since  the  Infinite  Companion  is  dead. 
The  system  of  law  whose  mighty  majesty  so 
attracted  the  imagination  at  first  has  lost  its 
almost  religious  appeal.  It  has  made  the 
world  less  lovely,  it  has  brought  an  autumn 
sense  of  loss  in  the  place  of  the  springtime 
of  the  soul.  Mechanics  have  taken  the  place 
of  personality  in  the  universe,  and  the  far¬ 
sighted  thinker  has  as  his  most  dominant 
emotion  a  sense  of  loss.  But  every  step  has 
been  taken  candidlv,  and  there  is  no  retreat. 
F aith  has  become  impossible,  but  intellectual 
candor  is  still  on  the  throne. 

Of  course  many  men  do  not  go  the  whole 
length  we  have  described.  They  build  them¬ 
selves  half-way  houses  in  various  spots;  but 
they  find  it  increasingly  hard  to  live  in  the 
half-way  house;  and  wdien  they  are  profes¬ 
sors  in  universities  they 
their  most  brilliant  students  refuse  to  stop  at 
all  at  the  half-way  house,  and  insist  on  press¬ 
ing  on  to  the  logical  conclusion.  God  is 

112 


usually  find  that 


A  SCIENTIFIC  MAN 


still  worshiped  in  the  half-way  house,  but  if 
one  takes  the  whole  journey,  the  Deity  is 
lost  before  the  destination  is  reached. 

III.  The  Period  When  Moral  and 
Religious  Facts  are  Recognized 
by  the  Scientific  Thinker 

As  time  passes,  however,  a  dim  gray 
comes  to  be  seen  in  the  darkness.  It  turns 
out,  after  all,  that  the  final  conclusion  was 
not  the  last  word.  As  Alice  found  it  possible 
to  go  through  the  looking-glass,  so  the  stu¬ 
dent  finds  that  there  is  something  beyond 
that  materialistic  interpretation  of  the  uni¬ 
verse  which  makes  it  merely  a  water-tight 
system  of  inflexible  laws.  The  new  start 
comes  with  the  recognition  that  all  the  facts 
have  not  been  faced.  If  there  is  anything 
a  scientific  thinker  makes  a  matter  of  pride, 
it  is  his  candid  appraisal  of  all  the  facts  to 
be  found  anywhere.  What  hospitality  is  to 
the  sheik  in  the  desert  open-minded  welcome 
of  new  facts  is  to  the  scientist.  So  it  is  with 
a  certain  revulsion  of  feeling  that  he  dis¬ 
covers  the  existence  of  a  whole  range  of  facts 

which  he  has  been  ignoring.  The  moral 

113 


THE  QUEST  FOR  WONDER 

experience  of  humanity  is  as  much  a  series 
of  facts  as  are  the  defining  characteristics 
of  any  form  of  life.  A  religious  experience 
is  as  much  a  fact  as  a  stone  or  a  bug  or  a 
chemical  reaction.  Knowledge  and  its  classi¬ 
fication  are  as  stubbornly  a  part  of  experi¬ 
ence  as  any  formation  which  confronts  the 
eye  of  the  geologist,  and  the  interpretation 
in  which  the  mind  can  rest  must  squarely 
meet  and  appraise  and  make  room  for  all 
the  facts  of  experience.  Having  set  in  some 
such  fashion  as  this  to  rise  no  more,  it 
seemed,  the  sun  of  religion  comes  within 
view  again,  having  risen,  it  may  be,  to  set  no 
more.  Men  of  science  come  to  feel  that  they 

mi 

must  investigate  the  phenomena  of  the  reli¬ 
gious  life.  With  the  same  curious  interest 
with  which  they  might  scrutinize  an  unusual 
insect  they  turn  their  eyes  upon  religion.  In 
such  a  spirit  has  been  done  the  type  of  work 
represented  by  the  late  Professor  William 
James’s  Varieties  of  Religious  Experience. 
The  earth  is  ransacked  for  data.  Question¬ 
naires  are  sent  out  which  lead  to  more  or 
less  critical  introspection.  The  secrets  of 
the  soul  are  put  under  the  microscope  and  a 

114 


A  SCIENTIFIC  MAX 


brave  attempt  is  made  to  unravel  the  mys¬ 
tery  of  the  power  of  religion.  All  this 
represents  one  great  gain.  It  offers  to  our 
young  man,  lost  in  the  mazes  of  despairing 
knowledge,  an  opportunity  to  go  back  to  a 
survey  of  the  precious  things  which  he  has 
lost.  It  recognizes  a  series  of  facts  which 
had  been  left  out  of  account.  It  does  not 
sneer  at  religion.  It  attempts  to  under¬ 
stand  it.  It  does  not  deride  conversion.  It 
attempts  to  explain  it. 

When  the  religious  world  sees  the  scien¬ 
tific  world  turning  a  respectful  gaze  upon 
religion  there  is  much  rejoicing.  In  some 
quarters  there  is  an  inclination  to  issue  a 
thanksgiving  proclamation.  It  is  felt  that 
at  least  a  prayer  meeting  might  be  held  to 
celebrate  the  event.  That  a  great  scientist 
should  devote  long  periods  of  time  to  collect¬ 
ing  and  classifying  the  data  of  religious 
experience  suggests  the  speedy  arrival  of 
the  millennium.  Before  the  issuing  of  the 
thanksgiving  proclamation,  however,  it  will 
be  well  for  us  to  do  a  little  close  thinking. 
The  facts  of  the  case  may  not  be  altogether 
as  encouraging  as  we  had  supposed.  If  a 

115 


THE  QUEST  FOR  WONDER 

man  gives  their  full  significance  to  all  the 
facts  of  religion,  there  is,  indeed,  a  new  start 
and  a  hope  of  a  brighter  day.  But  very 
often  it  happens  that  the  scientific  study  of 
religion  is  merely  an  attempt  to  get  all  the 
religious  phenomena  so  classified  and  inter¬ 
preted  as  to  fit  into  the  old  water-tight 
system.  It  often  happens  that  the  sun  has 
not  risen  after  all,  and  that  the  light  which 
played  in  the  sky  did  not  indicate  any  de¬ 
pendable  or  permanent  illumination.  The 
scientific  psychology  of  religion  may  easily 
turn  out  to  be  a  psychology  for  the  explain¬ 
ing  away  of  the  very  central  sanctions  of 
religion.  As  long  as  the  worship  of  the 
water-tight  system  remains,  there  is  really 
no  hope.  As  long  as  the  thinker  must  be 
loyal  to  the  machine  at  whatever  cost,  there 
is  no  real  gain.  To  admit  that  religious 
experiences  have  a  place  in  a  perfectly 
mechanical  and  impersonal  interpretation  of 
life  is  not  to  help  on  the  cause  of  religion. 
It  is  to  make  religion  impossible  to  those 
who  accept  the  interpretation.  To  admit 
that  belief  in  a  certain  series  of  events  and 
persons  and  ideas  has  had  a  transforming 

116 


A  SCIENTIFIC  MAN 


effect  on  human  lives  does  not  aid  in  pro¬ 
ducing  future  transformations  if  in  the  same 
breath  those  events  and  persons  and  ideas 
are  discounted  and  declared  without  genuine 
authenticity.  The  psychology  of  religion  is 
often  an  attempt  to  keep  religion  without 
theology,  which  is  very  much  like  an  attempt 
to  keep  circulation  without  any  veins  or 
arteries.  So  when  our  student  takes  up  the 
study  of  religion  in  a  scientific  way  he  has 
found  an  opportunity,  but  he  is  by  no  means 
sure  of  making  his  escape.  He  has  a  won¬ 
derful  system  of  pigeonholes,  and  he  will  be 
tempted  to  insist  on  getting  the  facts  into 
the  system.  He  may  all  too  easily  forget 
that  it  is  his  business  to  enlarge  the  system 
so  that  it  may  fit  the  facts.  The  really 
hopeful  thing  about  this  sort  of  investiga¬ 
tion  is  that  the  facts  simply  will  not  answer 
to  any  mechanical  formula.  If  a  man  once 
genuinely  faces  the  world  of  moral  and 
religious  experience,  his  world  of  mechanical 
thinking  will  begin  to  feel  earthquake 
tremors.  The  very  contact  with  the  deeply 
personal  experiences  and  transformations  is 
like  a  series  of  electric  shocks.  A  man  may 

117 


THE  QUEST  FOR  WONDER 

go  on  for  a  time  engrossed  in  a  dignified 
translation  of  personal  experiences  into 
interpersonal  formulas,  but  it  is  always  pos¬ 
sible  that  the  abject  futility  of  this  sort  of 
performance  will  dawn  upon  him.  When 
that  day  comes  there  will  be  a  sunrise  indeed. 
Our  sincere  and  eager  student  may  reach 
the  Great  Divide  in  this  fashion.  He  has 
spent  some  time  in  gathering  data  as  regards 
religious  experience.  He  has  them  classified 
in  a  clever  mechanical  fashion.  Then  he  is 
brought  to  a  sudden  stop  by  this  fact:  The 
one  thing  which  made  religion  transforming 
was  a  belief  in  a  personal,  supernatural  God. 
The  personal  trust  in  the  Divine  was  the 
point  of  strategy  in  the  religious  experience. 
Now  he  has  explained  the  mechanics  of  that 
experience.  He  can  produce  every  factor 
except  the  personal  trust  in  the  Divine.  But 
without  that  trust  a  repetition  of  the  ex¬ 
perience  would  be  impossible.  He  has, 
therefore,  explained  religious  experience  by 
leaving  out  its  one  defining  characteristic, 
and  he  has  explained  it  in  such  a  way  as  to 
make  its  repetition  forever  impossible  to 
those  who  accept  the  explanation.  The  most 

118 


A  SCIENTIFIC  MAN 


important  fact  has  slipped  through  his 
fingers  and  escaped.  Now  he  is  at  the  place 
of  critical  opportunity.  Somehow  he  must 
find  a  larger  synthesis.  Somehow  he  must 
make  a  place  for  the  Divine.  How  shall 
he  do  this  without  a  break-up  of  his  system? 
Can  it  be  that  the  mechanical  system  is  only 
a  part  of  a  larger  whole?  Can  it  be  that 
this  larger  whole  makes  room  for  the  very 
things  he  has  so  easily  discarded?  May  God 
and  freedom  and  personality  have  a  place 
in  the  larger  synthesis  to  which  the  candid 
thinker  is  driven  ? 

IV.  The  Period  Where  it  is  Seen  that 
Science  iS/A  Brilliant  Classifica¬ 
tion  but  Does  Not  Give  Any 
Answer  to  the  Ultimate 
Questions 

At  this  point  our  candid  thinker  is  likely 
to  meet  one  real  difficulty.  All  his  intel¬ 
lectual  life  has  consisted  of  flights  by  means 
of  the  use  of  one  wing.  The  other  has  no 
power  because  it  has  never  been  used.  Our 
age  worships  the  inductive  method  of  reason¬ 
ing,  and  it  is  probably  reserved  for  a  later 

119 


THE  QUEST  FOR  WONDER 


age  to  bring  to  its  full  service  the  too  lightly 
sacrificed  powers  of  deductive  reasoning. 
So  our  pilgrim  for  the  truth  will  probably 
use  enlarged  and  modified  induction  in  the 
perilous  way  to  which  he  has  now  come. 
Everything  hangs  on  his  ability  to  see  the 
meaning  of  one  distinction.  He  has  studied 
many  a  science ;  he  has  accepted  far-reaching 
scientific  generalizations;  now  he  must  see 
that  science  is  only  a  record  of  the  way  in 
which  things  happen.  It  never  tells  why 
they  happen.  Because  day  follows  night  no 
one  supposes  that  one  causes  the  other.  The 
great  philosophical  fallacy  of  science  is  the 
supposition  that,  because  one  thing  follows 
another,  the  thing  which  follows  must  be 
caused  by  the  thing  which  goes  before. 
Science  is  a  catalogue  of  the  uniformities  of 
nature.  It  has  never  told  anybody  why  they 
are  uniform.  It  does  not  know.  In  a  mov¬ 
ing  picture  the  earlier  films  are  not  the 
ancestors  of  the  later  films.  In  a  musical 
composition  the  earlier  notes  do  not  cause 
the  later  notes.  In  each  case  the  cause  is 
outside  what  appears  in  the  series  itself. 
Science  is  like  a  careful  record  of  notes  with 

120 


A  SCIENTIFIC  MAN 


no  reference  to  the  player.  It  is  like  a  care¬ 
ful  classification  of  the  separate  films  with 
no  reference  to  the  cinematograph.  Things 
happen  in  certain  ways;  science  records  the 
ways;  but  as  to  the  great  question  of  why 
they  happen  science  has  no  answer  to  give. 
If  our  pilgrim  after  truth  is  able  to  see  this 
fact,  he  is  about  to  receive  light  which  is 
light  indeed. 

A  question  may  be  asked  about  this  vast 
system.  Is  it  self -running,  or  does  it  have  a 
great  personal  ground  back  of  itself  ?  To 
answer  this  question  our  scientist  must 
plunge  into  philosophy.  He  must  become  a 
student  of  epistemology.  He  must  enter 
the  world  of  metaphysics.  As  he  journeys 
on,  light  increases.  His  great  discovery  will 
be  that  he  has  been  using  the  instruments 
of  the  mind  without  ever  critically  inspect¬ 
ing  them.  He  has  never  seen  what  is  in¬ 
volved  in  his  own  rationality.  The  moment 
he  begins  to  scrutinize  the  necessary  impli¬ 
cations  of  rationality  he  finds  personal  in¬ 
tention  and  freedom  and  the  discarded  dis¬ 
tinctions  of  his  youth  knocking  at  the  door 
again.  As  he  goes  on  he  discovers  that  a 

121 


THE  QUEST  FOll  WONDER 


self -running  mechanism  as  an  explanation 
of  the  universe  is  one  mass  of  contradictions. 
It  would  contradict  every  fundamental 
postulate  of  that  process  of  knowing  by 
which  it  is  worked  out.  It  would  deny  per¬ 
sonality  and  freedom  and  would  make 
knowledge  impossible.  If  there  were  such 
a  universe  as  the  mechanical  system  involves, 
we  could  never  know  it.  On  the  other  hand, 
a  universe  in  which  the  free  activity  of  a 
knowing  mind  is  the  fundamental  fact  makes 
room  for  everything  in  that  process  of  uni¬ 
formities  which  science  has  made  known  to 
us,  but  explains  them  all  by  a  Cause  which 
expresses  itself  in  these  uniformities,  and  not 
by  making  these  uniformities  self-sustain¬ 
ing. 

If  our  thinker  continues  faithfully  to  pur¬ 
sue  the  paths  of  critical  thought,  he  will  come 
to  see  that  science  has  its  splendidly  signifi¬ 
cant  and  important  field  in  observing  and 
classifying  the  uniformities  of  experience, 
but  that  it  must  leave  their  explanation  to 
philosophy,  and  philosophy  must  call  in  a 
free  and  knowing  person,  the  Master  of  Life. 
The  new  light  focuses  at  one  point.  Law 

122 


A  SCIENTIFIC  MAN 


has  been  considered  as  something  objective, 
something  real,  but  it  is  seen  that  by  itself  a 
law  is  only  a  figure  of  speech.  As  has  been 
wittily  said,  44 A  law  cannot  arrest  any  one — 
it  takes  a  policeman.”  From  the  standpoint 
of  that  description  of  the  way  things  happen, 
which  is  science,  a  law  is  simply  a  formula 
of  uniformity.  From  the  standpoint  of 
philosophy,  which  asks  the  ultimate  ques¬ 
tions,  law  is  the  name  of  the  way  in  which 
God  acts.  The  laws  of  nature  are  nothing 
but  the  abstract  expression  of  the  coherent 
and  orderly  method  of  the  action  of  God. 

%j 

When  all  this  is  seen  it  is  clear  to  our  thinker 
that  his  system  requires  God,  and  that  the 
last  attitude  of  science,  like  that  of  religion, 
is  one  of  faith.  The  only  assurance  for  the 
continuity  of  life’s  uniformities  is  to  be  found 

•j 

in  the  character  of  God.  But  once  allow 
divine  personality  to  be  the  ultimate  fact, 
and  there  is  room  for  all  those  facts  of  moral 
experience  which  belong  to  ethics  and  those 
facts  of  history  and  revelation  and  the  inner 
life  and  trust  which  belong  to  religion.  The 
larger  synthesis  explains  the  physical  uni¬ 
formities  and  leaves  room  for  personal  free- 

123 


THE  QUEST  FOR  WONDER 


dom  and  all  the  transforming  personal 
experiences. 

Now  the  student  does  not  try  to  make  his 
psychology  of  religion  fit  into  mechanical 
molds.  He  knows  that  morals  and  religion 
belong  to  that  aspect  of  experience  which 
transcends  the  physical  uniformities  of  life. 
When  our  thinker  has  set  the  bounds  between 
science  and  philosophy,  and  has  followed  a 
critical  philosophy  to  its  ulitimate  conclu¬ 
sions,  he  finds  a  foundation  for  all  the  faith 
of  his  childhood  as  well  as  for  all  he  has 
learned  in  scientific  study. 

V.  The  Ultimate  World  View 

Our  pilgrim  for  truth  has  now  found  an 
intellectual  destination.  He  sees  that  the 
task  of  the  thinker  is  to  find  a  view  which 
will  give  to  all  a  resting  place  of  experience, 
and  that  mechanical  views  fail  because  ex¬ 
perience  is  not  mechanical.  He  sees  that 
you  must  begin  all  adequate  thought  with 
a  thinker,  because  that  is  where  experience 
begins.  You  cannot  begin  with  things.  You 
can  find  a  place  for  them  only  as  a  part  of 
the  experience  of  living  thinkers.  He  sees 

124 


A  SCIENTIFIC  MAN 

that  in  his  days  of  doubt  he  had  allowed 
the  smaller  part  of  life  to  devour  the  larger. 
He  had  used  rationality  to  prove  that  the 
world  had  no  place  for  rationality.  Now  he 
begins  with  an  ultimate  person  as  the  neces¬ 
sary  postulate  of  experience.  He  finds  a 
place  for  all  the  mechanical  uniformities  of 
life  as  an  expression  of  an  orderly  mind  and 
a  steadfast  will,  but  he  knows  that  God  is 
greater  than  his  system,  and  if  there  were 
sufficient  motive  God  could  change  any  of 
the  uniformities.  He  is  not  a  citizen  in  a 
world  whose  laws  master  him.  He  is  king 
in  a  world  whose  laws  are  just  his  ways  of 
acting.  So  in  the  crisis  of  moral  history 
there  is  a  place  for  the  miracle.  When  God 
does  a  thing  in  a  different  way  you  have  a 
miracle.  When  he  does  it  in  his  usual  way 
you  have  the  so-called  order  of  nature. 
Really,  it  is  all  divine  activity,  both  the  uni- 
formity  and  that  place  of  crisis,  like  the 
resurrection  of  Jesus,  when  the  uniformity 
of  method  is  ignored  because  of  a  great 
ethical  and  spiritual  need.  With  the  per¬ 
sonal  view  of  the  universe,  whose  orderliness 
is  as  steady  as  the  character  of  God,  but 

12,5 


THE  QUEST  FOR  WONDER 


which  does  not  have  a  dead  and  mechanical 
rigidity,  there  is  room  for  freedom  for  man, 
for  morals,  for  the  tragedy  of  sin,  for  reli¬ 
gion,  for  a  real  revelation  from  God  to  men, 
for  the  incarnation  of  the  Son  of  God,  for 
the  mighty  deed  of  suffering  rescue  wrought 
by  the  Son  of  God  on  Calvary,  for  the  resur¬ 
rection,  for  the  new  life,  for  immortality,  and 
for  a  world  view  which  includes  all  the  uni¬ 
formities  of  science  and  all  the  facts  of  faith. 
Such  a  view  is  in  complete  accord  with  the 
justified  conclusions  of  modern  biblical 
scholarship.  It  avoids  those  extreme  con¬ 
clusions  which  are  the  result  of  rationalistic 
presuppositions  in  the  thinkers,  but  it 
candidly  accepts  those  positions  as  regards 
date  and  authorship  and  unfolding  revela¬ 
tion  which  have  commended  themselves  to 
the  sober  and  reverent  scholarship  of  the 
world.  It  cannot  rest  content  without  a 
divine  Christ.  It  must  be  sure  of  an  actual 
redemption  and  a  divine  forgiveness,  but  it 
is  very  comfortable  with  a  composite  Hexa- 
teuch,  and  is  ready  to  shake  hands  with  a 
second  Isaiah. 

Thus  our  pilgrim  for  truth  has  found  a 

126 


A  SCIENTIFIC  MAN 


Gibraltar  at  last.  He  remains  a  man  of 
science,  but  he  no  longer  confuses  science 
with  philosophy.  He  knows  that  the  ulti¬ 
mate  synthesis  is  a  matter  of  philosophic 
appraisal,  where  the  hidden  communion  of 
the  saint  and  the  formations  of  the  geologist 
alike  are  treated  with  candor.  He  knows 
that  God  is  the  final  postulate  of  the  uni¬ 
formities  of  science  as  well  as  of  the  raptures 
of  the  mystic.  He  knows  that  science,  ethics, 
and  religion  have  a  common  platform  in  the 
personal  interpretation  of  experience.  He 
knows  that  ultimate  forces  are  figures  of 
speech  and  an  ultimate  Person  a  reality.  The 
Lord  God  Almighty  is  the  explanation  of 
the  uniformities  of  nature  and  the  trans¬ 
formations  of  religion. 


127 


THE  NEW  ORTHODOXY 


CHAPTER  V 
THE  NEW  ORTHODOXY 

Orthodoxy  may  mean  a  number  of  dif¬ 
ferent  things.  It  may  mean  a  man’s  slavish 
assent  to  a  formal  code  which  he  has  never 
profoundly  studied  and  of  whose  basis  and 
implications  he  has  no  adequate  conception. 
It  may  mean  loyalty  to  a  traditional  point  of 
view  growing  out  of  a  profound  sense  of  the 
value  of  the  results  of  human  experience  as 
they  have  crystallized  through  the  ages.  It 
may  mean  adherence  to  certain  standards 
through  a  nervous  timidity  which  is  afraid 
to  venture  on  untried  ground  and  has  a 
special  distrust  of  intellectual  exploration. 
It  may  be  the  acceptance  of  recognized 
standards  after  a  personal  investigation  and 
struggle  which  has  tested  every  old  position 
as  if  it  were  now  for  the  first  time  offered 
to  the  world.  It  may  be  the  intellectual 
rest  of  a  man  whose  deepest  intuitions  and 
needs  seem  to  him  to  be  clearly  met  and 
satisfied  by  a  particular  interpretation  of 

131 


THE  QUEST  FOR  WONDER 

life  which,  though  old,  remains  vital.  Or  it 
may  be  that  a  number  of  these  different 
approaches  to  orthodoxy  unite,  making  it 
acceptable  to  a  particular  thinker.  You  do 
not  know  much  about  a  man  when  you 
merely  know  that  he  is  orthodox.  The 
orthodoxy  must  he  traced  down  to  its  roots 
in  his  intellectual  life.  And  even  farther, 
it  must  be  followed,  as  its  roots  twine  in  and 
out  of  his  moral  and  spiritual  life.  When  it 
is  the  expression  of  the  whole  life — the  out¬ 
come  of  mental  and  moral  and  spiritual 
vitality — orthodoxy  must  be  taken  very 
seriously.  The  variety  of  the  meanings  of 
the  word  “orthodoxy”  is  not  confined  to  the 
method  by  which  a  man  becomes  orthodox. 
It  also  includes  the  contents  of  his  belief. 
What  is  orthodox  in  one  age  has  often  been 
heretical  in  the  age  before.  What  is  ortho¬ 
dox  in  one  scientific  or  philosophical  or 
ecclesiastical  group  is  often  considered  non¬ 
sense  in  another.  Orthodoxy  from  this 
point  of  view  may  almost  be  defined  as  a 
fixed  standard  which  is  constantly  changing. 
Rut,  while  the  continued  readjustments  in 
human  thinking  warn  us  against  too  rigid  a 

132 


THE  NEW  ORTHODOXY 


conception  of  orthodoxy,  it  remains  true  that 
as  far  as  the  Christian  religion  is  concerned, 
there  have  been  large  realms  of  thought  as  to 
which  the  catholic  faith  has  kept  within  cer¬ 
tain  lines  in  a  remarkable  way.  We  may 
claim  a  right  to  use  the  word  “orthodoxy” 
with  some  precision  as  describing  Christian 
thought  within  these  limits.  The  personality 
of  God,  the  deity  of  Jesus  Christ,  the  deadli¬ 
ness  of  sin,  the  redemption  of  men  through 
the  death  of  Christ,  the  new  life  which  is 
the  gift  of  the  Son  of  God,  the  resurrection 
of  Jesus,  the  assurance  of  a  glorious  im¬ 
mortality  after  death — these  may  be  said  to 
represent  some  of  the  conceptions  to  which 
the  church  has  held  through  the  ages,  bat¬ 
tling  for  them,  repudiating  those  who  turned 
from  them,  stating  them  in  the  terms  of 
different  forms  of  culture  and  even  of  differ¬ 
ent  civilizations,  but  always  coming  back  to 
them,  never  having  done  with  them,  never 
outgrowing  them.  These  are  the  corner 
stones  of  the  orthodox  faith. 

While  all  this  is  clear  as  regards  the  past 
it  is  not  at  all  clear  as  regards  the  present. 
In  the  kaleidoscopic  shiftings  of  present- 

133 


THE  QUEST  FOR  WONDER 


day  theological  thought  it  is  not  at  all  easy 
to  say  what  conceptions  will  come  forth 
stamped  with  the  approval  of  the  consensus 
of  Christian  opinion.  Everything  is  in  solu¬ 
tion,  and  the  process  of  crystallization  does 
not  seem  to  be  particularly  rapid.  New 
methods  of  investigation,  new  conceptions 
of  authority,  new  scientific  postulates,  new 
jdiilosophical  theses,  new  political  and  social 
movements,  new  voices  of  a  hundred  types 
crying  in  the  wilderness  of  our  modern  life, 
give  the  careful  thinker  an  amount  of  mate¬ 
rial  to  understand  and  master  and  appraise ; 
and  at  the  same  time  so  tend  to  rob  him  of 
anv  fundamental  standards  to  use  in  the 
whole  process  of  study  and  appraisal  that  his 
task  may  be  said  to  be  one  of  particular  diffi¬ 
culty.  It  is  true,  however,  that  certain  well- 
defined  currents  in  the  great  unresting  ocean 
of  modern  thought  are  not  hard  to  discern. 
A  man  may  fathom  the  spirit  and  direction 
of  modernity,  while  he  finds  it  impossible  to 
speak  with  complete  assurance  and  finality 
about  its  goal. 

Before  attempting  some  analysis  of  the 
general  contents  of  the  modern  way  of  think- 

134 


THE  NEW  ORTHODOXY 


ing  it  will  be  well  to  remind  ourselves  a 
little  more  fully  of  the  position  and  bear¬ 
ings  of  what  we  may  call  the  Old  Orthodoxy. 
For  the  sake  of  clearness  let  us  make  a 
division.  The  Old  Orthodoxy  had  a  certain 
conception  of  the  Bible  and  of  religious 
authority.  It  had  a  certain  conception  of 
the  contents  of  the  Christian  faith.  It  will 
suit  our  purpose  to  speak  of  these  separately. 

First,  as  to  the  matter  of  the  Bible  and 
religious  authority.  To  the  Old  Orthodoxy 
the  Bible  was  a  correct,  authentic,  inerrant 
book.  If  there  wrere  mistakes  in  the  Bible, 
they  were  the  results  of  translation  or  copy¬ 
ing.  The  book  itself,  if  you  could  get  back 
to  the  originals,  was  faultless.  It  was  the 
complete  and  correct  and  accurate  expres¬ 
sion  of  the  will  of  God.  The  human  element 
in  its  composition  was  not  emphasized.  The 
author  of  a  particular  book  was  like  a  pen 
in  the  hand  of  the  writer.  God  was  the 
writer.  He  was  the  real  author  of  the  book. 
This  view  of  the  Bible  was  accompanied  by 
a  vivid  sense  of  its  unity.  You  could  quote 
texts  from  any  part  of  the  Bible  to  substan¬ 
tiate  a  position  you  were  trying  to  prove. 

135 


THE  QUEST  FOR  WONDER 

They  were  all  equally  authoritative.  God 
was  the  author  of  them  all.  When  you  had 
collected  all  that  the  Bible  said  on  any  sub¬ 
ject,  from  Genesis  to  Revelation,  you  could 
fairly  say  that  you  had  the  biblical  teaching. 
This  material  was  all  treated  as  if  it  con¬ 
sisted  of  different  utterances  from  one 
author,  at  one  time,  in  one  set  of  circum¬ 
stances;  every  utterance  as  important  as 
every  other.  The  Bible  was  not  thought  to 
be  like  a  continent  with  mountain  ranges 
and  plains,  with  hills  and  valleys,  with 
heaven-piercing  summits  and  deep  ravines. 
It  was  one  great  level  highland — the  high¬ 
land  of  the  Word  of  God.  Bound  up  with 
this  conception  of  the  Bible  was  a  certain 
conception  of  religious  authority.  If  God 
had  broken  silence  and  given  forth  an  iner- 
rant  utterance,  that  utterance  was  the  com¬ 
manding  wrord  to  the  children  of  men.  It 
simply  left  no  more  to  be  said.  It  was  a 
final  program  for  life;  a  faultlessly  correct 
reflection  of  the  will  and  purpose  of  God. 
Because  men  had  an  infallibly  correct  utter¬ 
ance  of  the  infallible  God  they  had  a  final 
and  unimpeachable  authority.  This  con- 

136 


THE  NEW  ORTHODOXY 


ception  required  an  inerrant  Bible.  If  there 
was  a  mistake  anywhere,  there  might  be 
mistakes  everywhere.  The  authenticity  of 
anything  in  the  Bible  required  the  authen¬ 
ticity  of  everything.  The  belief  in  verbal 
inspiration  was  an  attempt  to  buttress  this 
position  beyond  a  peradventure  and  a  doubt. 

Besides  having  the  general  conception  of 
the  Bible  and  religious  authority  which  we 
have  attempted  to  reflect,  the  Old  Ortho¬ 
doxy  had  a  certain  view  of  the  contents  of 
theology.  It  began  as  a  matter  of  course 
with  the  personality  of  God.  There  was 
no  need  to  argue  about  that.  It  bowed 
trembling  before  his  awful  holiness.  It  felt 
the  heat  of  his  flaming  righteousness.  Then 
it  had  a  certain  conception  of  sin.  The  dire 
tragedy  of  breaking  with  God’s  law  was 
forever  upon  its  conscience.  Sin  was  not 
simply  dreadful  misfortune.  It  involved 
guilt.  And  the  torturing  sense  of  awful 
guilt  fairly  prostrated  men.  Sin  made  a 
terrible  problem.  Something  must  be  done 
about  it.  F orgiveness  could  never  be  a  mat¬ 
ter  of  course.  The  greatest,  most  perplex¬ 
ing  problem  in  the  world  was  this  problem 

137 


THE  QUEST  FOR  WONDER 

of  sin  and  how  it  could  be  forgiven.  But 
something  had  been  done  about  it.  God  had 
sent  his  own  Son  to  deal  with  the  problem. 
The  Old  Orthodoxy  had  most  definite  views 
of  him.  He  was  very  God.  He  was  not  a 
high  angelic  messenger.  He  was  God’s  own 
Son.  It  was  right  to  worship  him.  He 
was  God  in  the  flesh.  And  the  Son  of  God 
had  dealt  with  the  problem  in  a  very  definite 
way.  He  had  died  to  save  men.  In  his 
death  he  had  made  possible  the  forgiveness 
of  sin.  However  one  might  explain  it,  the 
truth  was  that  he  took  men’s  responsibilities 
upon  himself.  He  bore  their  burden.  He 
bent  under  the  weight  of  their  guilt.  In  his 
great  suffering  deed  he  achieved  their  peace. 
Then  he  had  rent  the  veil  which  made  the 
future  dark.  He  had  risen  from  the  dead. 
His  resurrection  was  the  assurance  and  seal 
of  men’s  immortality.  The  Old  Orthodoxy 
had  very  definite  views  regarding  the  future. 
The  moral  significance  of  life  was  so  great 
that  upon  it  hung  eternal  issues.  To  accept 
Christ  and  his  great  sacrificial  death  was  to 
inherit  eternal  life.  To  refuse  him  was  to 
inherit  eternal  death.  The  Old  Orthodoxy 

138 


THE  NEW  ORTHODOXY 


had  a  high  standard  of  life.  The  Christian 
was  to  trust  Christ  for  everything,  hut  he 
was  to  live  as  faithfully  as  if  he  had  no  trust 
but  his  own  deeds.  His  life  was  to  he  the 
expression  of  the  will  of  God.  His  obedi¬ 
ence  was  to  be  the  complete  devotion  of  his 
life. 

At  this  point  we  call  attention  to  a  fact 
whose  full  significance  will  appear  later  in 
this  discussion.  The  typical  modern  Chris¬ 
tian  with  an  evangelical  experience  reading 
the  above  summary  will  have  two  feelings. 
The  theology  of  the  Old  Orthodoxy  will 
greatly  appeal  to  him ;  on  the  other  hand,  its 
conception  of  the  Bible  and  of  religious 
authority  will  appear  quite  impossible.  He 
will  feel  that  he  could  never  accept  it. 

Turning  now  to  present-day  currents  of 
thought,  what  is  the  situation  which  we  dis¬ 
cover?  Again,  for  the  sake  of  clearness, 
let  us  make  a  distinction:  Modernity  has  a 
certain  conception  of  the  Bible  and  of  reli¬ 
gious  authority;  and  modernity  has  certain 
clearly  defined  tendencies  as  to  the  contents 
of  its  view  of  Christianity  and  of  life. 

As  to  the  Bible,  the  modern  note  is  struck 

139 


THE  QUEST  FOR  WONDER 


in  the  words  of  Coleridge,  “The  Bible  finds 
me.”  The  note  of  emphasis  in  the  modern 
conception  of  the  Bible  is  its  vitality.  Here 
is  a  book  which  treats  life  so  profoundly  that 
the  serious-minded  man  simply  must  take 
account  of  it.  The  moral  loftiness,  the  amaz¬ 
ing  intellectual  penetration,  the  spiritual 
cogency  of  the  Bible  forces  it  upon  our  at¬ 
tention.  Its  inner  quality  is  such  that  we 
cannot  make  light  of  it.  The  book  is  the 
expression  of  the  thought  of  a  large  number 
of  different  men.  It  reflects  the  outlook 
upon  life  of  different  periods,  and  even  of 
different  civilizations.  To  understand  it  in 
any  adequate  fashion  you  must  be  a 
patient  student  of  history;  and  in  quoting 
it  you  must  carefullv  bear  in  mind  not 
only  the  context  in  the  book  from  which 
you  quote,  but  also  that  larger  context 
which  is  the  environment  of  the  writer 
of  the  book  or  the  speaker  of  the  words. 
There  is  a  great  human  element  in  the 
book  which  must  never  be  lost  sight  of.  But, 
while  all  this  is  true,  it  is  also  true  that 
no  other  literature  rises  to  such  heights.  It 
bears  the  stamp  of  the  divine  upon  it.  The 

140 


THE  NEW  ORTHODOXY 


moral  passion  of  the  prophets,  the  spiritual 
insight  of  Hebrew  poetry,  the  white  and 
winning  and  majestic  life  of  Jesus,  the  whole 
wonderful  New  Testament  utterance,  with 
its  moral  energy  and  spiritual  power — all 
these  speak  in  a  language  unshared  by  other 
books.  They  lift  the  Bible  into  a  unique 
place.  They  make  it  proper  to  speak  of  the 
Bible  as  the  Book  of  God.  Corresponding 
to  this  conception  of  the  Bible  is  a  certain 
conception  of  religious  authority.  The 
authoritative  is  the  vital.  That  which  com¬ 
pels  a  man’s  mind,  masters  his  conscience, 
and  energizes  his  will  has  a  kind  of  authen¬ 
ticity  which  is  more  commanding  than  any 
mere  technical  correctness  or  verbal  iner¬ 
rancy.  The  Bible  has  this  high  commanding 
vitality.  It  may  contain  mistakes.  It  does 
contain  mistakes.  Certain  parts  of  the  Bible 
may  reflect  the  thought  of  people  on  the  way 
to  the  truth  rather  than  the  thought  of 
people  who  have  arrived  at  the  truth.  This, 
indeed,  we  must  affirm  of  the  Bible.  Even 
New  Testament  writers  may  not 
all  the  implications  of  the  great  principles 
they  are  enunciating.  Even  they  may  some- 

ill 


THE  QUEST  FOR  WONDER 


times  be  limited,  rather  than  helped,  by  the 
thought  forms  in  which  they  must  utter  their 
message.  But  when  all  this  is  frankly  and 
fully  admitted  it  remains  true  that  the  Bible 
is  alone  among  books  in  its  power  to  rouse 
the  conscience.  It  is  alone  among  books  in 
the  loftiness  of  its  conception  of  God.  It 
has  a  solitary  splendor  in  the  morally  crea¬ 
tive  quality  of  its  message.  It  authenticates 
itself  as  the  bearer  of  God’s  own  message 
to  men  by  its  perennial  seizure  of  man’s  mind 
and  conscience  and  heart ;  its  perpetual 
energizing  of  the  human  will;  its  unabated 
power  to  bring  to  men  a  message  which  is 
morally  creative.  When  all  mechanical  pro¬ 
tections  have  been  cast  aside,  when  all  merely 
formal  defenses  have  been  repudiated,  the 
Bible  stands  forth  strong  in  its  inherent 
qualities  and  vindicates  its  authority  as  a 
vital  guide  to  the  heart  of  God  and  to  the 
doing  of  God’s  will. 

Turning  from  the  modern  conception  of 
the  Bible  and  of  religious  authority,  we  come 
to  the  difficult  matter  of  the  theological  con¬ 
tents  of  modernity.  In  this  realm  general¬ 
izations  must  be  made  with  care ;  and  it  must 

142 


THE  NEW  ORTHODOXY 


be  kept  in  mind  that  it  is  a  sketch  of  a  situa¬ 
tion  at  large,  and  not  an  analysis  of  the 
position  of  some  individual  present-day 
thinker,  which  is  being  attempted. 

The  outstanding  contrast  between  mo¬ 
dernity  and  the  Old  Orthodoxy  begins  in  the 
way  in  which  sin  is  viewed.  The  haunting 
sense  of  the  deadliness  of  personal  trans¬ 
gression  is  scarcely  to  be  found  in  a  typical 
modern  thinker  in  whose  thought  processes 
the  Zeitgeist  has  full  sway.  There  is  much 
consciousness  of  evil  to  be  remedied.  There 
is  much  passionate  eagerness  to  right  the 
wrong  of  the  world.  But  the  emphasis  is 
rather  on  evil  as  a  result  of  environment 
than  on  evil  as  a  result  of  personal  intention. 
Sin  has  become  less  a  personal  tragedy,  less 
a  matter  of  dire  personal  guilt,  and  more 
an  unfortunate  social  phenomenon.  It  is 
less  a  matter  of  conscience  and  more  a  matter 
of  social  statistics.  It  is  conceived  as  so  much 
a  matter  of  confusion  and  ignorance,  so 
much  the  deposit  of  heredity  and  unpromis¬ 
ing  environment,  that  along  these  lines  it 
seems  easiest  to  think  about  it.  It  is  easier, 
to  put  it  bluntly,  to  think  of  a  man  as  a 

143 


THE  QUEST  FOR  WONDER 


moral  ignoramus,  or  as  a  victim,  than  as  a 
sinner.  The  sharp  ethical  perception  of  the 
personal  meaning  of  sin,  then,  has  in  the 
main  departed  from  modernity.  Naturally 
in  the  wake  of  this  certain  results  follow. 
Without  a  sense  of  sin  so  dreadful  that  the 
consciousness  of  guilt  fairly  paralyzes 
human  endeavor,  the  emphasis  of  the  Old 
Orthodoxy  on  the  death  of  Christ  seems 
strangely  unreal  and  overwrought.  Moder¬ 
nity  can  understand  the  expression  of  the 
Father’s  love  in  noble  self-giving,  even  unto 
death ;  it  can  understand  the  creative  potency 
of  this  great  revelation  of  the  love  of  God, 
but  Calvary  as  the  deed  of  a  Sin-Bearer, 
Calvary  as  a  personal  act  of  taking  up  the 
responsibilities  of  sinful  men,  Calvary  as 
expiation — to  the  modern  view  it  is  simply 
inexplicable.  It  seems  to  consist  of  words 
without  meaning.  It  is  convicted  of  un¬ 
reality.  Then  it  is  easy  for  modernity  to 
feel  that  it  has  no  gift  for  answering  meta¬ 
physical  questions  about  the  person  of 
Christ.  If  it  had  so  poignant  and  terrible 
a  conception  of  sin  that  only  the  very  Son  of 
God  could  deal  with  the  problem  it  might  be 

144 


THE  NEW  ORTHODOXY 


forced  into  making  assertions,  with  vast 
metaphysical  implications,  about  the  person 
of  Jesus.  As  it  is,  it  stands  full  of  awe  and 
reverence  before  the  Man  of  Galilee,  it 
listens  to  his  teachings,  it  strives  to  imbibe 
the  spirit  of  his  life,  it  learns  from  him  the 
meaning  of  the  Fatherhood  of  God  and  the 
brotherhood  of  man,  and  it  goes  out  to  its 
tasks,  its  mind  preoccupied  by  this  revela¬ 
tion.  Modernity  sounds  no  great  and  de¬ 
cided  note  about  the  Deity  of  Jesus.  And 
the  fundamental  reason  is  not  that  it  has 
metaphysical  difficulties.  The  fundamental 
reason  is  that  the  modernist  has  a  view  of 
life  which  does  not  absolutely  require  a 
divine  Christ. 

The  most  attractive  phases  of  modernity 
have  to  do  with  its  sense  of  the  immanence 
of  God  and  its  social  passion.  Modernity 
may  not  be  very  clear  as  to  all  the  implica¬ 
tions  of  its  theism  (indeed,  sometimes  the 
laws  of  nature  may  look  so  frowningly 
strong  that  it  seems  as  if  this  theism  is  en¬ 
dangered),  but  at  least — without  a  clearly 
thought  out  system — it  is  sure  that  God  is 
the  Infinitely  Near.  He  is  the  present 

145 


THE  QUEST  FOR  WONDER 


source  of  all  the  activity  of  the  world.  We 
do  not  need  to  reach  out  to  find  him.  He  is 
always  here.  Sometimes  this  conception  of 
the  immanence  of  God  is  expressed  in  such 
a  way  that  it  is  difficult  to  call  it  anything 
but  pantheism,  but  its  warming  and  vivify¬ 
ing  quality  cannot  be  denied.  Then  the 
social  passion  of  modernity  is  a  lofty  and 
beautiful  thing.  It  believes  in  brotherhood. 
It  seriously  sets  about  getting  men  to  live 
as  brothers  should.  It  is  ready  to  fight  the 
good  fight  of  freeing  modern  life  from 
its  blasting  evils.  Cleansed  countries  and 
cleansed  cities  and  cleansed  homes  are  its 
goal.  It  believes  that  the  kingdom  of  God 
is  the  kingdom  of  good  here  and  now,  and 
right  loyally  it  strives  to  bring  it  in. 

Now,  the  modern  man  with  a  typical 
evangelical  experience  has  two  feelings  as  he 
faces  modernity.  The  first  has  to  do  with 
its  theology.  Leaving  out  of  account  its 
view  of  the  immanence  of  God  and  its  social 
passion,  of  which  we  will  speak  later,  he  is 
not  attracted  by  its  theological  conceptions. 
Its  view  of  sin  seems  to  him  to  lack  moral 
realism.  It  does  not  take  account  of  the 

146 


THE  NEW  ORTHODOXY 

darkest  and  direst  facts  of  life.  His  ex¬ 
perience  seems  to  go  to  depths  of  need  of 
which  modernity  has  no  apprehension.  Its 
conception  of  Calvary  is  beautiful,  and  it  is 
true,  but  it  is  not  all  the  truth  and  it  is  not 
the  most  important  part  of  the  truth.  This 
modern  man  with  an  evangelical  experience 
knows  that  the  deepest  meaning  of  Calvary 
to  him  is  its  answer  to  the  need  of  a  con¬ 
science  passionately  awake.  The  words 
“ sin-bearer’ ’  and  “expiation”  are  great  words 
to  him.  The  very  center  of  his  hope,  the 
creative  power  in  his  life,  is  the  fact  that 
Christ  has  borne  his  sins  and  made  possible 
his  redemption.  Modernity  leaves  the  Cross 
beautiful,  poetic,  and  impotent  in  the  pres¬ 
ence  of  life’s  supremest  moral  demand;  the 
outcry  of  a  conscience  unappeased.  Then  the 
modern  man  with  an  evangelical  experience 
is  not  contented  with  the  Christ  modernity 
has  to  offer  him.  He  recognizes  the  truth  of 
much  it  has  to  say.  He  is  glad  to  receive 
many  an  illuminating  word,  but  here  again 
he  misses  the  word  he  most  needs.  In  the 
crucial  need  of  his  life  one  thing  he  must  be 
sure  of:  he  must  be  sure  that  Jesus  is  God. 

147 


THE  QUEST  FOR  WONDER 


Life’s  tragic  problem  to  him  is  of  such  a 
character  that  it  cannot  be  solved  by  prophet, 
priest,  or  poet.  It  can  be  solved  only  by 
the  Son  of  God.  So  this  man,  with  his 
recoil  from  the  blackness  of  sin,  with  his 
hope  through  the  Son  of  God,  who  has  died 
to  make  possible  the  forgiveness  of  his  sins, 
feels  that  the  modernist  would  ask  him  to 
live  in  a  smaller  world;  a  world  with  a  less 
candid  treatment  of  the  facts  of  life,  and  a 
world  with  the  deepest  craving  of  his  life 
unmet  and  the  outcry  of  an  awakened  con¬ 
science  after  peace  unsatisfied. 

On  the  other  hand,  when  our  modern  man 
with  an  evangelical  experience  reads  what 
modernity  has  to  say  about  the  Bible  and  the 
source  of  religious  authority,  lie  is  much  at¬ 
tracted  by  it.  To  him  the  Bible  is  authorita- 
%/ 

tive  because  of  its  inherent  power  of  moral 
mastery.  To  him  it  is  compelling  because  it 
meets  the  deepest  outreach  of  his  life  as  does 
no  other  book  in  all  the  world.  Like  the 
modernist,  he  is  undisturbed  by  changes  of 
view  as  to  date  and  authorship.  Like  the 
modernist,  he  is  quite  easy  in  the  presence  of 
the  fact  of  the  human  elements  in  the  Bible, 

148 


THE  NEW  ORTHODOXY 


and  lie  is  eager  to  use  the  Scriptures  with 
due  sense  of  their  historic  background  and 
the  actual  standpoint  of  each  author.  Like 
the  modernist,  he  feels  that,  when  all  conces¬ 
sions  have  been  made,  the  uniqueness  and 
the  moral  and  spiritual  power  of  the  Bible 
remain.  He  finds  himself  in  general  sym¬ 
pathy  with  the  modernist  conception  of  the 
Bible  and  religious  authority.  He  finds 
himself  dissatisfied  with  the  central  postu¬ 
lates  of  modernity  as  to  theology.  Now,  we 
have  alreadv  seen  that  this  modern  man  with 

mJ 

an  evangelical  experience  finds  himself 
drawn  to  the  theological  conceptions  of  the 
Old  Orthodoxy  and  repudiating  its  concep¬ 
tions  of  the  Bible  and  of  religious  authority. 
It  really  seems  that  if  he  could  combine  the 
modern  conception  of  the  Bible  and  reli¬ 
gious  certainty  with  the  central  theological 
postulates  of  the  Old  Orthodoxy  he  would 
find  himself  satisfied.  This,  indeed,  is  the 
goal  of  our  discussion.  This  is  just  what  is 

necessary  for  us  to  do.  And  this  we  venture 
« / 

to  denominate  the  New  Orthodoxy. 

It  is  no  mere  artificial  combining  of  parts 
of  two  discordant  points  of  view  for  which 

149 


THE  QUEST  FOR  WONDER 

we  plead.  The  fact  is  that  the  modern  con¬ 
ception  of  religious  authority  supports  the 
central  theological  postulates  of  the  Old 
Orthodoxy  and  will  ultimately  be  seen  to 
demand  them.  The  pragmatists  tell  us  that 
the  point  of  view  which  proves  creative, 
which  is  necessary  to  the  growth  and  de¬ 
velopment  of  life,  may  be  accepted.  The 
thing  which  the  growing  life  of  the  race 
must  have  in  order  to  its  growth  it  has  a 
right  to  have.  That  very  need  is  proof  of 
the  validity  of  the  thing  needed.  The  man 
of  the  New  Orthodoxy  replies:  “Very  well. 
I  accept  that  principle,  and  I  point  out  some 
applications  of  it  which  do  not  seem  to  have 
occurred  to  you.  The  conception  of  sin  as 
a  terrible  matter  of  personal  intention  and 
the  haunting  sense  of  its  dire  guilt  are  at  the 
root  of  all  adequate  morals.  The  view  of 
the  cross  as  a  great  divine  deed  of  expiation 
answers  the  awakened  conscience  as  nothing 
else  does,  and  frees  and  energizes  the  man 
who  accepts  it  for  a  full  and  victorious  man¬ 
hood.  The  belief  that  Jesus  Christ  was  very 
God  gives  a  potency  to  the  redemptive  deed 
without  which  it  cannot  do  its  full  work. 

150 


THE  NEW  ORTHODOXY 


These  beliefs  as  to  the  deadliness  of  sin,  as 
to  the  deed  which  makes  forgiveness  pos¬ 
sible,  as  to  the  deity  of  Jesus  Christ,  com¬ 
bine  into  a  group  of  morally  creative  con¬ 
ceptions  unparalleled  in  human  thought.” 
So  pragmatism  becomes  one  of  the  chief 
supports  of  orthodoxy.  In  truth,  with  a 
belief  in  a  vital,  as  distinguished  from  a 
mechanical,  authority,  we  come  to  a  new 
emphasis  on  the  theological  contents  of  the 
Old  Orthodoxy.  It  is  just  because  the  Bible 
sounds  such  a  dire  and  terrible  note  in  its 
conception  of  sin,  just  because  it  presents 
Jesus  as  the  Son  of  God,  just  because  it 
sees  in  the  cross  the  deed  of  a  great  Sin- 
bearer,  that  it  becomes  finally  authoritative 
to  us;  because  it  deals  adequately  with  sin, 
and  presents  us  with  a  victorious  Saviour  and 
a  deed  on  the  cross  which  sets  the  conscience 
at  rest,  that  it  is  vindicated  to  us  as  the  Book 
of  God. 

So  the  New  Orthodoxy  is  fearlessly 
modern  in  its  view  of  the  Bible  and  of  reli¬ 
gious  authority.  It  welcomes  all  new  light 
from  critical  scholarship.  It  repudiates 
mechanical  and  lifeless  views  of  authority. 

151 


THE  QUEST  FOR  WONDER 

With  a  conscience  awake  it  receives  peace 
from  God  through  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ, 
and  in  that  experience  the  Bible  becomes 
authoritative.  The  Bible  is  eternally  satis¬ 
fying  because  it  is  the  Book  of  Redemption. 
The  New  Orthodoxy  builds  its  theology 
about  a  conception  of  sin  as  heavy  with  a 
sense  of  its  horrible  guilt  as  any  theology  of 
the  past;  it  rests  in  a  nobly  spiritual  inter¬ 
pretation  of  the  cross,  free  from  crass  and 
mechanical  conceptions  of  commercial  ex¬ 
change,  to  be  sure,  but  unflinching  in  its 
insistence  that  the  cross  is  the  deed  of  a  Sin- 
bearer  who  made  possible  the  forgiveness 
of  sins.  It  looks  up,  and  is  forever  chal¬ 
lenged  by  its  conception  of  J esus :  very  God 
as  well  as  very  man,  the  Son  of  God  who 
died  for  us,  Lord  of  all  forever.  Then  the 
New  Orthodoxy  finds  a  place  for  all  that  is 
deeply  real  in  the  theological  conceptions  of 
modernity,  while  repudiating  its  errors.  It 
welcomes  the  thought  of  the  immanence  of 
God.  Its  God  is  the  infinitely  near,  but  so 
interpreted  as  to  avert  completely  the  dis¬ 
integrating  consequences  of  pantheism.  It 
accepts  the  social  passion  and  goes  out  to 

152 


THE  NEW  ORTHODOXY 


work  for  the  kingdom  of  God,  cleansing 
modem  life,  mastering  commerce,  politics, 
social  life,  and  home  life  in  the  name  of 
Christ.  Thus  the  Xew  Orthodoxy  arrives 
at  an  organism  of  belief  and  a  program  of 
activity.  It  is  no  matter  of  intellectual 
patchwork,  but  the  living  union  of  those 
truths  which  belong  together  and  will  set  us 
free  and  energize  us  for  the  great  tasks  of 
the  world.  The  Old  Orthodoxy  had  a  place 
of  definite  inadequacy  in  its  viewr  of  the 
Bible  and  religious  authority.  Modernity 
is  inadequate  in  its  conception  of  sin,  of  the 
cross,  and  the  person  of  Christ.  The  Xew 
Orthodoxy,  with  a  modern  and  vital  concep¬ 
tion  of  the  Bible,  with  a  morally  adequate 
conception  of  sin,  of  salvation,  and  of  Jesus, 
the  Son  of  God,  can  gird  itself  as  a  strong 
man  to  run  a  race.  It  is  able  to  face  the 
future  unafraid. 


158 


BUSHNELL  AND  “THE 
VICARIOUS  SACRIFICE” 


CHAPTER  VI 


BUSHNELL  AND  “THE  VICARIOUS 
SACRIFICE” 

I 

Horace  Bushnell  was  born  in  Connect¬ 
icut  in  1802.  He  died  in  1876.  He  was 
reared  in  the  Congregational  Church,  but  his 
mother  had  been  a  member  of  the  Episcopal 
Church,  and  his  father  had  learned  Arminian 
views  from  his  mother  and  objected  to  the 
rigid  Calvinism  delivered  where  he  lived. 
So  religiously  varied  currents  met  in  Horace 
Bushnell.  His  father  had  two  occupations 
— conducting  a  factory  and  a  farm.  Bush¬ 
nell  worked  in  connection  with  both.  His 
heredity  and  environment  seemed  to  com¬ 
bine  to  preclude  narrowness  and  provincial¬ 
ism.  Diversity  came  in  upon  him  in  life  and 
thought.  His  mother  was  a  woman  by  whom 
duty  was  made  authoritative  without  being 
hateful,  and  who  made  religion  felt  as  a 
reality  without  making  it  a  constant  topic 
of  conversation.  The  home  was  a  New 

157 


THE  QUEST  FOR  WONDER 

England  home  and  more;  and  in  a  sense  it 
was  prophetic  of  Bushnell,  who  was  to  be  a 
New  England  man,  and  far  more  than  that. 
Conscience,  and  a  practical  relation  to  life, 
with  a  compelling  conviction  in  the  things  of 
religion,  are  three  New  England  character¬ 
istics.  These  things  were  true,  but  not  the 
distinctive,  characteristics  of  Bushnell.  The 
deep  vein  of  mysticism  and  the  versatility  of 
his  thought  and  life  in  combination  with  the 
other  qualities,  made  Bushnell  what  he  was. 
At  twenty-one  he  entered  Yale  College. 
After  a  course  where  he  was  felt  as  a  leader 
he  graduated.  Then  he  studied  law  and 
became  a  tutor  in  the  college.  He  had  been 
religious  as  a  boy,  but  a  skeptical  period 
came  and  an  intense  revival  movement  in 
the  college  found  him  intellectually  unsym¬ 
pathetic.  A  group  of  young  men  who  ad¬ 
mired  him  stood  aloof  from  the  movement. 
This  was  more  than  Bushnell  could  bear. 
He  listened  to  the  demands  of  his  conscience 
and  his  heart  and  opened  himself  to  the  re¬ 
vival  influences.  How  his  doubts  were  dealt 
with  may  be  seen  in  his  own  words.  .  Speak¬ 
ing  of  the  Trinity  he  said:  “I  am  glad  I 

158 


BUSHNELL 


have  a  heart  as  well  as  a  head.  My  heart 
wants  the  Father,  my  heart  wants  the  Son, 
my  heart  wants  the  Holy  Ghost — and  one 
just  as  much  as  the  other.”  It  was  the 
appeal  to  experience  which  was  to  underlie 
much  of  his  thinking  and  life.  He  entered 
the  divinity  school  and  in  1833  was  invited 
to  become  pastor  of  the  North  Church  in 
Hartford,  Connecticut,  where  all  his  active 
ministerial  life  was  spent.  His  pastorate 
entered  into  the  very  life  of  Hartford.  The 
park  bearing  his  name  is  one  evidence  of  how 
deeply  he  impressed  the  city.  His  influence 
entered  into  the  fiber  of  the  manhood  of  the 
city,  inspired  it  in  educational  ideals  and 
even  in  commercial  activity.  He  became 
Hartford’s  first  citizen.  After  hearing  him 
on  Sunday,  we  are  told,  men  would  say, 
“I’ve  heard  a  great  sermon  and  I’m  going 
to  make  my  week  mean  something!”  His 
relation  to  his  own  church  is  suggested  by 
the  unity  with  which  it  stood  by  him  through 
the  fierce  theological  controversies  which 
raged  about  him,  finally  withdrawing  from 
the  Concession  to  protect  him  and  express 
its  loyalty  to  him.  When  his  divergence 

159 


THE  QUEST  FOR  WONDER 

from  opinions  almost  universally  held  be¬ 
came  understood  the  attack  began  which 
continued  a  running  fire  for  years.  Vain 
attempts  were  made  again  and  again  to 
bring  him  to  trial.  The  Congregational 
polity  was  in  his  favor.  Besides,  Bushnell 
was  not  the  sort  of  man  to  try  for  heresy; 
there  was  such  a  massive  Christian  quality 
about  him  that  N ew  England  common  sense 
held  the  heresy-hunters  in  check.  He  was 
interested  in  everything.  He  planned  roads, 
could  not  pass  over  a  stream  without  calcu¬ 
lating  its  water  power,  had  a  passion  for 
nature,  organized  a  musical  society  when  at 
Yale,  was  practical,  poetic,  virile,  alive  to 
the  finger  tips.  Through  all  this  versatile 
life  the  ring  of  conscience  sounds  clear,  and 
under  it  there  heaved  the  great  tidal  move¬ 
ment  of  a  deep  personal  religious  life.  He 
was  forever  original.  Though  a  reader,  he 
was  not  in  any  technical  sense  a  scholar. 
There  was  too  much  going  on  inside  his  own 
mind  for  that.  He  kept  problems  hanging 
on  pegs,  as  he  said,  until  he  could  get  to 
them.  Such  eagerness  and  such  vitality  were 
his  that  to  the  last  he  was  planning  new 

160 


BUSHNELL 


and  large  enterprises  of  thought.  If  he  was 
still  alive,  he  would  be  publishing  a  book 
this  year  to  startle  men  out  of  intellectual 
sluggishness,  partly  agreeing  with  the  spirit 
of  the  time,  as  easily  disagreeing  with  it; 
moving  with  an  almost  airy  freedom  from 
earth’s  control,  but  with  a  very  solid  strength 
for  a  man  who  has  wings.  PI  is  thinking  was 
a  preacher’s  thinking,  his  theology  was  a 
preacher’s  theology.  The  young  men  who 
listened  to  him  in  Hartford  found  in  him  a 
leader.  Through  his  hooks  he  has  been  the 
master  of  many,  a  sort  of  theological  pastor, 
and  his  preaching  rooted  in  his  experience. 
Skillful  and  brilliant  as  he  was,  the  secret  of 
his  power  was  not  in  these  things,  except  as 
they  expressed  the  spiritual  realities  which 
he  had  verified  in  his  own  life.  Great  as 
he  was  a  thinker,  he  was  greater  as  a 
seer.  His  style  at  times  is  dazzlingly  bril¬ 
liant.  Heaven  and  earth  are  laid  under 
tribute,  and  one  is  sometimes  almost  be¬ 
wildered  by  the  play  of  light,  the  gleam  of 
figure,  the  sweep  of  movement,  and  the  qual¬ 
ity  of  noble  phrase.  Yet  it  is  not  always 
an  easy  style  to  read,  and  it  is  not  always 

161 


THE  QUEST  FOR  WONDER 


just  lucid.  Bushnell’s  originality  is  his 
weakness,  as  well  as  his  strength,  here  as 
elsewhere.  He  takes  liberties  with  words. 
To  a  generation  taught  by  Matthew  Arnold 
some  of  his  constructions  are  awkward. 
Perhaps  it  would  be  too  much  to  expect  a 
volcano  to  have  regard  to  literary  chastity. 
There  is  something  in  Bushnell’s  style  which 
suggests  the  paintings  of  Church,  with  their 
daring  brilliancy  of  color.  The  comparison 
may  not  be  fair  to  Bushnell,  but  he  has 
something  of  the  fault  of  Church.  All  is, 
of  course,  redeemed  by  a  wealth  of  thought 
which  completely  saves  his  style  from  being 
splendid  pyrotechnics.  Its  best  defense 
would  be  to  say  that  it  was  an  expression  of 
the  man. 

The  last  years  of  Bushnell’s  life  were  a 
battle  with  disease.  A  manly  battle  it  was, 
and  they  were  not  years  of  idleness.  They 
were  filled  with  work  as  he  was  able,  and  the 
richness  of  his  nearness  to  God  glowed  over 
them.  The  theological  controversies  were 
healed  not  by  agreement  but  by  a  growing 
respect  and  reverence  for  the  man.  In  the 
day  of  his  passing  one  of  America’s  most 

162 


BUSHNELL 


distinct  and  notable  minds  was  lost  to  this 
world’s  activities.  When  we  think  of  the 
largely  built  men  of  his  century,  we  do  not 
hesitate  to  name  him  amonsf  them. 


II 

The  New  England  theology  was  a  thing 
of  wonderful  logical  acumen,  but  it  tended 
to  reduce  theology  to  the  terms  of  formal 
logic.  In  one  way  Browning’s  “Tertium 
Quid”  in  The  Ring  and  the  Book  might 
represent  its  fatal  tendency  to  miss  reality 
in  the  pursuit  of  logical  correctness.  And 
the  logic  became  not  merely  formal  and 
mechanical  but  cold,  heartless,  even  cruel. 
Some  of  its  assertions  were  unethical  enough 
unless  measured  by  some  supramundane 
standard  of  ethics  where  two  and  two 
morally  do  not  make  four.  The  reaction 
from  this  came  about  in  two  ways.  First 
there  was  the  Unitarian  movement.  It  had 
several  aspects.  There  was  the  moral  aspect. 
Trying  to  get  away  from  an  immoral  God, 
it  gave  itself  to  negations.  It  insisted  and 
reinsisted  that  certain  cruel  things  which 
theology  had  asserted  could  not  be  true  of 

163 


THE  QUEST  FOR  WONDER 

God.  In  many  of  its  negations  it  was  cor¬ 
rect  enough,  and,  doubtless,  many  were 
driven  into  Unitarianism  by  the  false  asser¬ 
tions  of  a  mistaken  orthodoxy.  Then  there 
was  its  theological  aspect.  It  more  and 
more  reacted  so  as  to  leave  Christ  quite  com¬ 
pletely  without  divinity.  Beginning  with  a 
lofty  and  spiritual  sort  of  Arianism,  by  the 
very  law  of  its  nature  it  lowered  and  lowered 
its  estimate  of  Christ.  A  distrust  of  the 
potency  of  the  supernatural  led  toward  the 
repudiation  of  miracles.  Theologically, 
Unitarianism  tended  to  drift  into  a  modified 
skepticism.  Then  there  was  the  aesthetic 
side.  It  represented  religion  without  ethical 
cost.  It  created  piety  without  the  echo  of 
Mount  Sinai  thundering  through  it.  A 
natural  outcome  of  this  aspect  is  seen  later 
in  the  philosophy  of  Emerson  and  the  dilet¬ 
tante  piety  of  “Christian  Science.”  Begin¬ 
ning  as  a  party  of  protest,  Unitarianism 
possessed  great  and  noble  leaders.  In  many 
details  it  was  right.  But  almost  every  pro¬ 
found  tendency  promised  less  and  less  noble 
things  in  days  to  come.  The  other  reaction 
from  the  older  New  England  theology  was 

164 


BUSHXELL 


in  the  direction  of  a  modified  Calvinism. 
Here  the  governmental  theory  of  the  atone¬ 
ment  found  play.  But  it  was  an  attempt 
to  heal  with  more  logic  the  wounds  made  by 
logic.  The  syllogism  still  sat  grandly  on  the 
throne.  Whatever  may  be  thought  of  it  as 
an  intellectual  achievement,  the  result  did 
not  save  the  situation.  The  modified  Cal¬ 
vinism  had  taken  up  logic  and  by  its  logic 
it  was  to  perish.  In  such  a  theological  world 
Bushnell  was  trained.  His  whole  theological 
life  was  a  reaction  from  the  reign  of  formal 
logic.  The  heart  must  be  heard.  Life  must 
speak.  Christian  thinking  must  be  made 
vital.  We  will  best  approach  his  work  from 
the  standpoint  of  his  theory  of  language. 
To  him  language  was  not  a  vehicle  of  abso¬ 
lutely  correct  speech;  it  was  a  symbol,  a 
suggestion.  If  this  were  true,  it  was  a  great 
and  destructive  bomb  thrown  into  the  camp 
of  the  formal  logicians.  For,  if  words  are 
but  symbols,  how  can  they  be  used  in  closely 
reasoned  demonstrations  ?  Who  would  think 
of  making  a  syllogism  of  metaphors?  Words 
are  a  means  of  contact  with  reality  through 
a  sort  of  splendid  suggestion,  but  you  must 

165 


THE  QUEST  FOR  WONDER 

not  try  to  tie  them  down  to  the  niceties  of 
absolute  accuracy.  Then  nature  was  a  great 
symbol.  Bushnell  was  quite  Wordsworthian 
in  his  feeling  about  nature.  It  was  just 
another  set  of  words,  a  symbol  of  the  highest 
realities  of  life.  Coming  in  this  attitude  to 
the  problems  of  theology,  he  had  a  wonder¬ 
ful  exegetical  freedom.  He  really  did  not 
need  the  help  of  modern  critical  scholarship ; 
his  theory  of  language  saved  him  in  every 
awkward  situation.  Regarding  the  Trinity 
he  at  first  expressed  himself  in  quite  Sabel- 
lian  forms.  He  had  a  passion  for  the  unity 
of  God  like  that  of  Unitarians.  One  God 
with  three  modes  of  expression  might  pretty 
well  describe  the  impression  made  by  his 
early  writing  about  the  Trinity.  The  more 
he  thought  over  the  problem  the  more  he 
tended  to  move  toward  orthodoxy.  He 
pushed  the  distinctions  in  the  Godhead 
farther  and  farther  back  until  finally  he 
spoke  of  God  as  “eternally  threeing  him¬ 
self.”  Perhaps  this  sounds  more  nearly 
orthodox  than  it  is,  for  to  the  last  Bushnell 
emphasized  the  threefold  aspect  as  necessary 
in  regard  to  relations  with  the  finite  rather 

166 


BUSHNELL 


than  inherently  essential  to  the  life  of  the 
Godhead.  His  study  of  the  supernatural 
recognized  a  world  of  nature,  with  its 
mechanical  laws,  and  a  supernatural  world 
including  all  persons — man  as  well  as  God 
— but  he  conceived  of  it  all  as  a  unity  with 
God  as  ruler.  The  contention  that  man  was 
supernatural  tended  to  be  of  the  greatest 
help  to  men  beginning  to  be  afraid  of  the 
laws  of  nature,  and  his  insistence  that  all 
made  a  unity  ruled  by  God  was  right  and 
true.  If  he  had  seen  that  even  the  laws 
of  nature  are  just  God’s  ways  of  doing 
things,  he  would  have  come  to  the  very  heart 
of  the  problem.  His  work  on  Christian 
Nurture,  of  more  practical  than  theological 
value,  insisted  that  children  in  Christian 
homes  should  be  brought  up  as  belonging  to 
God  and  trained  as  members  of  his  King¬ 
dom.  This  seems  like  a  commonplace  now, 
but  the  practical  contention,  valuable  as  it 
was,  had  a  theological  presupposition  which 
needs  careful  scrutiny.  A  certain  kind  of 
emphasis  on  training  needs  to  be  made  with 
clear  understanding  of  the  meaning  of  per¬ 
sonality  and  personal  choice.  When  Bush- 

167 


THE  QUEST  FOR  WONDER 


nell  spoke  of  Christ  he  usually  used  terms 
in  which  the  divinity  swallowed  up  the 
humanity.  He  was  sure  of  God  in  Christ. 
The  other  side  of  the  problem  perhaps 
scarcely  occurred  to  him. 

This  hasty  sketch  of  his  work  as  a  Chris¬ 
tian  thinker,  omitting  The  Vicarious  Sacri¬ 
fice,  which  will  be  referred  to  immediately, 
does  not  reveal  what  was  most  characteristic 
and  valuable  in  his  theological  method.  He 
was  always  expressing  his  own  Christian  ex¬ 
perience,  or  what  he  felt  necessary  to  protect 
it.  It  was  the  theological  foundation  for  a 
life  he  wanted  to  get.  He  was  ready  to 
consider  and  reconsider  his  theology  in  the 
light  of  his  growing  Christian  life.  Theology 

crystallized  Christian 
experience ;  it  was  to  be  Christian  experience 
living  and  thrilling  in  beautiful  symbols, 
forever  suggesting  and  leading  the  soul  to 
the  sanctuaries  of  Christian  reality  itself. 

Ill 

The  first  volume  of  The  Vicarious  Sacri¬ 
fice  was  written  during  the  Civil  War.  The 
book  itself  has  a  great  throb  of  battle  in  it. 

168 


was  to  be  not  merely 


BUSHNELL 

But  it  is  no  petty  warfare,  with  intellectual 
raid  and  plunder;  it  is  a  great,  noble  battle, 
a  Gettysburg,  with  far-flung  lines  and  lof¬ 
tiest  heroism.  The  book  has  its  necessary 

•y 

polemic,  but  its  whole  tone  is  lofty. 
Here  Bushnell’s  repudiation  of  the  the¬ 
ology  of  formal  logic  is  expressed  at  white 
beat.  The  central  thing  about  the  Chris¬ 
tian  faith  was  salvation.  The  central  thing 
must  be  expressed  in  terms  of  life.  It  must 
not  be  even  wonderfully  articulated  bones, 
it  must  be  flesh  and  blood  and  nerves.  Here 
theology  must  be  translated  into  heart 
throbs.  So  he  set  to  work  upon  the  great 
task,  to  discuss  salvation  in  terms  of  life. 
And  the  great  principle,  the  positive  foun¬ 
dation  for  all  the  work,  was  the  necessity 
inherent  in  love  to  get  under  whatever  bur¬ 
den  of  sorrow  and  pain  and  sin  affects  those 
loved;  in  suffering  sympathy  to  enter  into 
the  very  meaning  of  their  woe;  to  bare  its 
own  life  to  the  blasts  which  heat  upon  them; 
to  go  forth  to  rescue  at  whatever  cost,  nay, 
with  a  certain  passionate  eagerness  for  the 
cost  of  sorrowful  experience  which  will 
work  rescue.  This  is  the  principle  of 

169 


THE  QUEST  FOR  WONDER 

vicarious  sacrifice  inherent  in  love.  It  is  a 
universal  principle.  It  is  true  of  God  the 
Father,  it  is  true  of  the  Holy  Ghost,  it  is 
true  of  the  good  angels,  it  is  true  of  all 
redeemed  souls.  When  love  is  love  it  has 
no  other  choice  than  to  go  forth  under  any 
burden  of  pain  for  the  helping  of  those  for 
whom  love  yearns.  This  is  the  motive  of 
salvation.  This  is  the  spiritual  meaning  of 
the  cross.  It  is  an  eternal  meaning.  There 
was  a  cross  in  the  heart  of  God  from  eternity. 
Christ  revealed  it  on  Calvary.  The  inherent 
obligation  of  God’s  life  required  this  sacri¬ 
fice.  He  was  not  any  better  than  he  ought 
to  be;  he  was  just  completely  loyal  to  the 
meaning  of  his  own  love.  But  this  quality 
of  willingness  to  suffer  for  the  rescue  of 
men  becomes  itself  a  moral  power,  becomes 
itself  a  rescue  when  it  is  expressed  in  terms 
of  human  life.  The  vicarious  principle  in 
the  heart  of  God,  crystallized  into  action, 
becomes  the  moral  power  which  conquers 
and  renovates  the  sinner.  Christ  came  to 
be  this  moral  power — not  to  be  simply  an 
example,  not  to  be  simply  an  influence,  but 
to  be  a  power,  the  power  of  love  in  the 

170 


BUSHNELL 


abandon  of  suffering  to  rescue  from  sin. 
His  work  as  a  healer  gives  a  keynote  to  his 
ministry.  He  was  always  healing  bodies, 
it  was  a  parable  of  his  work  as  a  healer  of 
souls.  No  technical  change  in  legal  status 
would  satisfy  him;  he  must  see  sin  conquered 
— slain — in  man,  and  his  work  was  so  to 
become  a  moral  power  that  the  very  root 
motives  in  men’s  lives  would  be  seized  and 
held  for  God.  How  did  he  do  it?  By  every¬ 
thing  about  him.  By  life  and  death  all 
together.  He  did  not  come  to  die;  he  died 
because  he  was  here  and  the  situation  in 
which  he  found  himself  required  death.  You 
can  follow  his  life  from  the  start,  however, 
and,  full  of  wonder  as  it  is,  full  of  heartbreak 
as  his  death  is,  the  pivotal  place  in  his  prac¬ 
tically  becoming  a  moral  power  was  at  the 
resurrection.  That  showed  who  he  was.  The 
life  and  death  of  a  splendid  man  could  not 
become  the  required  moral  power,  but  the 
life  and  death  of  One  revealed  by  the  resur¬ 
rection  to  be  God  in  human  life  breaks  right 
into  the  heart  and  becomes  the  power  of 
God  unto  salvation.  View  life,  and  words, 
and  works,  and  death  from  this  high  vantage 

171 


THE  QUEST  FOR  WONDER 


ground,  and  all  leaps  with  significance. 
The  eternal  heartbreak  in  the  life  of  God 
has  got  itself  expressed.  Thus  he  loved,  thus 
he  suffered ;  thus  he  entered  the  very  burden 
of  the  world’s  woeful  sin.  Thus  the  verv 

c/ 

moral  potency  of  God  is  set  loose  in  human 
life.  Thus  does  Christ  become  the  moral 
power  of  God  in  rescuing  men  from  sin. 

But  now  we  are  beset  by  the  hosts  of  the 
logicians.  What  becomes  of  the  justice  of 
God  in  this  view?  The  question  rings  out 
with  the  charge  of  the  enemy.  Right 
eagerly  Bushnell  girds  himself  for  the  fray. 
Let  us  get  to  the  root  of  the  matter,  he  says, 
in  effect.  This  whole  question  of  justice 
must  be  scrutinized,  for  justice  is  not  the 
fundamental  thing  in  God.  Justice  is  a 
quality  of  God  in  the  practical  exigencies 
of  government.  There  is  a  deeper  thing.  It 
is  the  very  ideal  law  of  right,  existing  before 
government;  the  law  in  fundamental  one¬ 
ness  with  which  God  is  what  he  is.  Justice 
must  be  treated  with  respect,  but  this  funda¬ 
mental  law  must  be  satisfied.  And  what  is 
vicarious  sacrifice,  what  is  love  taking  up  the 
burden,  the  woe,  the  whole  tragedy  of  sin 

172 


BUSHNELL 


upon  its  own  feeling  and  life,  in  rescuing 
agony,  but  the  very  expression  of  this  funda¬ 
mental  law?  This  is  the  law  before  govern¬ 
ment.  It  is  the  deepest  thing  we  can  touch ; 
and  instead  of  being  an  obstacle  in  the  way, 
it  causes  the  rescue  of  men  by  the  moral 
power  of  vicarious  sacrifice.  But  what  about 
the  antagonism  between  justice  and  mercy? 
There  is  no  antagonism.  They  work  to¬ 
gether.  Justice  holds  the  evil  man  in  the 
chains  of  his  evil  until  a  change  in  his  life 
lifts  him  out  of  the  category  where  retribu¬ 
tive  causes  work.  There  is  no  let-up  in  this. 
It  is  unflinching.  Mercy  finds  a  way  to 
work  in  the  man  a  change  which  lifts  him 
out  of  the  range  of  the  retributive  causes 
of  life.  Justice  is  steady,  and  works  as 
another  force  in  the  very  field  where  mercy 
works.  Like  two  forces  in  nature,  they  may 
seem  to  contain  a  formal  contradiction  but 
really  are  cooperative  in  the  whole  process. 
But  what  about  the  law’s  high  demand  upon 
life?  Christ  honors  it  in  every  way.  He 
restores  men  to  obedience  to  it.  He  restores 
it  to  its  place  of  power.  He  obeys  it  him¬ 
self,  and  he  dies  in  loyalty  to  it.  Christ  is 

173 


THE  QUEST  FOR  WONDER 

the  great  supporter  and  uplifter  of  the  law. 
As  to  legal  enforcement,  there  is  no  failure. 
We  may  almost  say  that  a  new  sternness 
comes  to  light  in  Christ.  He  first  announced 
the  doctrine  of  eternal  punishment,  and  he 
announced  it  in  the  most  appalling  forms  of 
speech.  And  he  announced  the  judgment. 
His  words  flame  with  moral  fire.  All  this 
perfectly  protects  legal  enforcements.  As  to 
God’s  rectoral  honor,  that,  too,  is  protected. 
For  Christ  as  God  stepped  aside  from  no 
burden  laid  upon  the  race  by  the  curse  of 
sin.  He  entered  into  the  very  meaning  of 
the  curse.  Under  its  pressure  he  so  lived 
and  wrought  and  died  as  to  become  the 
world’s  supreme  moral  power.  A  work  so 
wrought  can  never  dishonor  God  as  a  ruler. 
So,  not  by  mechanical  or  commercial  substi¬ 
tution  but  by  the  moral  power  of  his 
vicarious  sacrifice,  Christ  works  out  our  sal¬ 
vation.  It  is  a  process  wrought  in  men.  It 
is  not  something  done  for  them  in  which  they 
have  no  part.  And  what  is  their  part?  It 

faith  they  so 
open  their  lives  to  this  moral  power  that  it 
does  its  work  in  them.  Justification  by 

174 


is  the  consent  of  faith.  By 


BUSHNELL 


faith  is  not  a  new  legal  status;  it  is  a  new 
life.  The  sinner  is  actually  made  into  a  new 
creature ;  but  this  new  life  constantly  comes 
from  the  power  of  Christ.  The  man  all  the 
while  is  being  worked  upon.  And  this  con¬ 
stant  derivation  of  power  from  Christ 
through  faith  is  justification. 

Just  now  another  attack  comes  sweeping 
before  the  reader.  The  guns  thunder  with 
the  sacrificial  ammunition  of  the  Old  Testa¬ 
ment.  Bushnell  proceeds,  as  he  believes,  to 
capture  the  guns  and  to  turn  them  upon  the 
enemy.  What  was  the  meaning  of  the  whole 
sacrificial  system  of  the  Old  Testament? 
Why,  like  words  themselves,  it  was  a  great 
symbol,  and  it  was  finally  to  teach  not  legal 
cleansing  but  moral  cleansing.  Ceremonial 
cleansing  was  finally  to  uplift  cleansing  of 
life.  The  whole  system  was  a  parable  of 
purification.  And  what  does  all  this  mean 
but  that  the  whole  system  was  a  preparation 
for  the  viewing  of  Christ’s  work  as  a  real 
purification,  as  a  moral  power? 

Xow,  after  the  manner  of  ancient  battles, 
the  fighting  along  the  line  ceases  and  some 
giant  words  come  up  to  do  single  combat. 

175 


THE  QUEST  FOR  WONDER 


There  are  three  Goliaths  of  them:  Atone¬ 
ment,  Propitiation,  and  Expiation.  Of  these 
Expiation  is  a  Philistine  indeed  and  Bush- 
nell  goes  forth  to  his  slaying.  As  a  matter 
of  fact,  we  are  told,  expiation  is  no  biblical 
conception  at  all.  It  is  a  heathen  concep¬ 
tion  grafted  on  the  Bible  and  grafted  on  the 
gospel.  Expiation  spells  itself  out  in  terms 

of  unutterable  cruelty.  It  is  a  heartless 

•/ 

conception  from  the  classics.  It  has  no  home 
in  the  Bible  nor  in  our  faith.  Expiation 
slain,  atonement  and  propitiation  are  ex¬ 
plained.  They  have  been  fighting  under  the 
wrong  colors.  All  we  need  is  to  understand 
them.  Atonement  is  at-one-ment — the  real, 
not  the  legal,  harmonizing  of  man  and  God. 
And  how  is  this  done  except  by  the  power 
of  Christ  making  the  man  a  new  creature? 
Propitiation  is  the  new  attitude  God  can 
have  toward  this  changed,  renewed  man. 
The  essential  change  is  in  the  man.  This 
makes  possible  a  new  relation  of  God  to  him, 
and  this  essential  change  is  wrought  by  the 
moral  power  of  Christ.  But  there  is  some¬ 
thing  left  to  be  done.  Christ’s  great  sacri¬ 
fice  is  to  become  a  moral  power  in  our  fives 

176 


BUSHNELL 


and  so  save  us  from  sin,  but  he  does  not 
become  a  moral  power  by  our  calling  him 
that.  He  does  not  become  a  moral  power 
by  our  thinking  of  him  as  that,  or  by  our 
trusting  him  as  that.  In  fact,  we  must  for¬ 
get  all  about  his  being  a  moral  power,  or  he 
cannot  be  the  greatest  power  at  all.  Our 
very  self-consciousness,  in  thinking  of  him 
as  a  moral  power,  is  in  danger  of  preventing 
his  becoming  so.  How  is  this  dilemma  to  be 
dealt  with?  We  must  think  of  him  object¬ 
ively.  Xot  that  his  work  is  objective,  to 
be  sure,  but  that  in  order  to  be  subjective 
it  needs  to  be  thought  of  objectively.  So 
we  may  bring  back  the  very  phrases  of 
objective  atonement,  only  we  will  under¬ 
stand  that  we  are  using  them  as  beautiful 
symbols  to  deliver  us  from  over-subjectivity; 
not  that  we  accept  any  mechanical  logical 
conception  which  might  seem  to  flow  from 
their  use.  So  shall  Christ  become  our  great 
moral  power.  So  shall  his  vicarious  sacrifice 
renew  the  world. 

IV 

All  this  work  is  done  with  a  mental  bril¬ 
liancy,  a  resourcefulness  in  conflict,  a  con- 

177 


THE  QUEST  FOR  WONDER 

stant  and  detailed  reference  to  the  Bible 
seen  from  continually  surprising  angles,  a 
depth  of  spiritual  power,  a  devotion  to 
Christ  and  a  moral  passion  of  which  this 
discussion  has  given  no  adequate  notion  at 
all.  It  is  a  splendid  piece  of  constructive 
work  coming  from  the  mind  and  heart  of  a 
great  Christian  man.  Now,  what  is  to  be 
our  verdict  upon  it?  1.  In  the  first  place, 
the  great  positive  contention  is  true.  Mr. 
Charles  W.  Iglehart  once  described  the 
“Moral  Influence  theory”  as  “a  number  of 
true  things  about  the  atonement.”  That 
Christ’s  work  is  a  power  in  men  can  never 
be  denied,  but  while  that  is  true  it  is  not 
all  the  truth ;  while  it  is  a  power  in  men  it  is 
also  an  achievement  for  men ;  and  this  Bush- 
nell  did  not  see.  2.  Not  a  little  of  Bushnell’s 
negative  work  will  stand.  The  crass 
mechanical  views  of  the  atonement  must  be 
repudiated,  and  repudiated  as  earnestly  as 
by  Bushnell;  but  he  had  not  faced  the  ques¬ 
tion  whether  an  objective  work  of  Christ 
had  not  been  wrought  which  was  no  mechan¬ 
ical  or  commercial  exchange,  but  a  vital 
thing,  capable  of  being  expressed  in  terms 

178 


BUSHNELL 


of  vitality.  And  he  did  not  ask  if  many 
who  used  terribly  inadequate  phrases  might 
not  be  feeling  after  a  reality  which  their 
phrases  grossly  misrepresented,  but  which 
was  the  great  fact  of  the  whole  matter  for 
all  that.  If  he  had  sought  to  find  the  vital 
meaning  in  an  objective  atonement,  instead 
of  discarding  it,  all  his  work  would  have 
been  different.  3.  His  presentation  of  the 
moral  view  keeps  within  sound  of  the 
thunders  of  Mount  Sinai  in  the  most  won¬ 
derful  way.  It  would  surely  be  impossible 
to  present  the  moral  view  in  a  more  whole¬ 
some  fashion.  What  he  says  of  judgment, 
punishment,  and  all  ethical  things  bristles 
with  cutting  blades  of  moral  intensity.  This 
is  not,  I  think  one  may  say,  a  characteristic 
of  typical  moral-influence  theories.  Could 
a  man  who  had  such  an  intensely  glowing 
sense  of  fundamental  moral  things  continue 
contented  with  the  moral  view?  It  remained 
to  be  seen.  4.  His  theory  of  language  was 
a  pitfall  to  its  user.  Of  course  there  is  a 
large  symbolic  element  in  language;  but  if 
speech  is  to  be  at  all  trustworthy,  there  must 
be  a  place  for  definite  meanings,  and  even 

179 


THE  QUEST  FOR  WONDER 

in  transcendent  themes  we  may  be  sure  of 
certain  results  without  claiming  any  ex¬ 
haustive  knowledge.  We  may  have  islands 
of  certainty  even  in  the  infinite  ocean. 
There  is  a  symbolic  element  in  language 
and  there  is  a  definite  element.  When  all 
speech  is  reduced  to  symbol  it  makes  a  man 
too  free.  It  tends  to  make  him  lawless. 
5.  So  Bushnell’s  use  of  the  Bible,  uncon¬ 
sciously  to  himself,  was  free  and  easy.  It 
is  not  dependable.  Often  where  modern 
criticism  would  have  delivered  Bushnell 
from  difficulty  he  just  takes  wings  and  flies 
away.  He  had  a  right  to  the  deliverance, 
but  he  had  no  right  to  the  method,  and  often 
he  uses  the  method  when  he  has  no  right 
either  to  the  deliverance  or  to  the  method. 
We  must  treat  words  more  seriously  and 
reverently  than  his  theory  allowed.  6.  His 
feeling  that  the  great  subjective  work  must 
be  spoken  of  as  though  it  were  objective  is 
a  most  interesting  thing.  It  gives  an  air  of 
artificiality  to  this  part  of  a  most  real  book. 
Yet  his  point  is  surely  well  made,  and  the 
escape  from  the  dilemma  is  not  hard  for  us 
to  see.  The  work  must  be  thought  of 

180 


BUSHXELL 


objectively  because  it  is  an  objective  work — 
not  as  a  necessary  mental  fiction.  It  is  a 
work  for  us,  and  so  becomes  a  power  in  us. 
Seeing  the  matter  in  this  light,  we  preserve 
all  that  is  of  value  in  the  moral  view  and 
give  the  deeper — the  central — fact  of  the 
atonement  its  right  place.  7.  With  all  its 
vitality,  there  are  most  vital  and  essential 
questions  the  book  does  not  adequately  face: 
What  does  sin  mean  in  the  sight  of  God? 
Does  sin  make  such  a  difference  to  God  that 
something  more  than  the  rescue  of  the  sinner 
must  be  done  to  satisf}r  him?  How  is  the 
rescued  man  to  have  peace  in  spite  of  his 
memory  of  past  sins  ?  Just  what  is  the  New 
Testament  consciousness  about  the  death  of 
Christ?  8.  Bushnell  did  not  succeed  in  so 
getting  the  great  law  of  right  quite  into  the 
nature  of  God  that  here  was  the  very  source 
of  its  existence.  If  he  had  done  this,  and 
had  faced  the  demand  of  the  nature  of 
God  in  the  presence  of  sin,  he  would  have 
found  full  deliverance  from  mechanical 
and  commercial  theories,  but  he  would  not 
have  made  the  port  of  the  moral-influence 
theory. 


181 


THE  QUEST  FOR  WONDER 


V 

The  second  volume  of  The  Vicarious 
Sacrifice  was  first  published  in  1874 — eight 
years  after  the  publication  of  the  first 
volume.  It  was  published  as  a  separate 
work,  with  the  title,  Forgiveness  and  Law, 
and  it  was  Bushnell’s  intention  that  it  should 
appear  finally  as  a  substitute  for  Parts  III 
and  IV  of  his  earlier  volume.  This  was 
much  objected  to,  and  after  his  death  it  was 
decided  to  let  the  first  volume  stand  as  it 
was,  and  publish  Forgiveness  and  Law  as  a 
second  volume  under  the  same  title  as  the 
first — The  Vicarious  Sacrifice. 

This  volume  came  as  a  result  of  what 
Bushnell  felt  to  be  an  accession  of  new  light. 
It  has  two  positive  contentions.  One  has 
regard  to  propitiation,  the  other  expresses 
a  conception  of  the  relation  of  law  and  com¬ 
mandment.  Bushnell  had  made  the  dis¬ 
covery  that  when  a  man  tries  to  forgive  there 
is  a  moral  repulsion  which  can  be  overcome 
only  as  the  person  wronged  gives  himself, 
in  some  way,  in  self-sacrifice  and  suffering, 
to  the  one  who  has  wronged  him.  Then  the 

182 


BUSHNELL 


hardness  or  moral  repulsion  departs  from 
his  own  heart.  He  has  propitiated  himself. 
Using  his  favorite  principle  of  arguing  from 
analogy,  Bushnell  reasoned,  If  this  be  true 
of  human  nature,  why  not  of  the  divine 
nature?  And  so  he  came  to  the  conclusion 
that  there  is  a  moral  repulsion  in  God’s 
nature  which  is  overcome  by  self-propitia¬ 
tion.  But  this  self-propitiation  of  God  is 
not  the  suffering  life  and  death  of  Jesus. 
These  are  the  means  by  which  God’s  self¬ 
propitiation  is  revealed  to  men.  But  the 
self-propitiation  itself  is  an  eternal  thing — 
God’s  everlasting  taking  cost  and  suffering 
upon  himself — by  virtue  of  his  very  nature. 
Jesus  made  this  aspect  of  the  nature  of  God 
tangible  to  men.  It  now  becomes  possible 
for  Bushnell  to  see  more  in  the  phrases 
representing  the  idea  of  propitiation  in  the 
Bible.  He  now  has  a  distinctly  Godward 
side  in  his  conception  of  the  atonement. 
The  other  positive  contention  of  the  new 
volume  had  regard  to  law  and  command¬ 
ment.  Bushnell  felt  that  the  commandment 
of  Christ  was  a  different  thing  from  the  law 
— the  statutes — of  the  Old  Testament.  The 

183 


THE  QUEST  FOll  WONDER 

one  was  legal,  and  imposed  demands  for  a 
man  to  perform  definite  things.  The  other 
implanted  a  great  principle  and,  in  free  and 
spontaneous  dependence  on  Christ,  expected 
loyalty  to  it.  Life,  Bushnell  felt,  is  full  of 
parallels  to  these  two.  First  there  is  the 
legal  demand ;  later,  with  new  incentives,  the 
spontaneous  loyalty.  Rut  these  legal  de¬ 
mands  have  regard  not  to  final  justice,  but 
to  discipline,  and  the  ‘'penally  coercive  dis¬ 
cipline”  and  the  great  motives  back  of  the 
commandment  together  work  the  completion 
of  the  Christian  man.  Final  justice  comes 
only  in  the  summing  up  after  this  life  is 
over.  It  has  nothing  to  do  with  this  life. 
This  world  is  a  place  of  discipline.  And  in 
that  discipline  the  harder  pressure  of  the 
law  and  the  creative  incentives  of  the  com¬ 
mandment  work  together.  Bushnell  re¬ 
affirms  his  attitude  toward  justification  by 
faith  and  urges  finally  the  viewing  of 
Christianity  under  different  forms  of 
thought,  such  as  those  used  by  Jesus  in  fore¬ 
telling  the  Holy  Spirit’s  work,  in  order  that 
we  may  be  freed  from  the  frozen  lifelessness 
of  old  formulas,  and,  perhaps,  at  last,  from 

181 


BUSIINELL 


the  larger  perspective,  see  more  adequately 
the  great  meaning  of  old  words  enslaved 
now  by  a  scholastic  theology. 

This  book  was  written  when  Bushnell  was 
about  seventy  years  old.  There  are  several 
things  to  be  said  about  it.  1.  It  shows  his 
wonderful  openness  of  mind.  He  was  al- 
wavs  ready  to  receive  new  truth.  He  was 
the  kind  of  man  who  keeps  growing  to  the 
day  of  his  death.  2.  It  was,  more  than  he 
really  knew,  probably,  a  step  toward  an  ob¬ 
jective  view  of  the  atonement.  It  recog¬ 
nized  an  obstacle  in  God  which  had  to  be 
met.  It  was  met,  he  believed,  by  self-pro- 
pitiation.  This  was  a  long  step.  When  a 
man  sees  that  God’s  nature  is  such  that 
something  must  be  done  to  satisfy  him 
before  sin  can  be  forgiven  he  is  no  longer 
merely  a  teacher  of  the  moral-influence 


theory.  3.  The  significance  of  all  this  lies 
here:  Bushnell  had  written  the  most  nobly 
Christian  exposition  which  could  be  made 
of  the  moral  view.  If  a  Christian  could  ever 
rest  in  that  view,  he  could  rest  in  it  as  it  is 
expressed  by  Bushnell.  But  Bushnell  him¬ 
self  could  not  rest  in  it.  His  own  Christian 


185 


THE  QUEST  FOR  WONDER 


consciousness  was  so  profound  that  it  re¬ 
quired  something  more.  And  so  the  man  of 
seventy  years  set  about  thinking  out  this 
“something  more”  and  found  it  as  an  ob¬ 
jective  element,  a  Godward  side  to  the 
atonement.  So,  though  he  himself  did  not 
see  it,  Bushnell  becomes  the  most  effective 
critic  of  the  moral  view.  4.  It  is,  I  think, 
not  fanciful  to  see  a  certain  kinship  between 
Bushnell’s  idea  of  self-propitiation  and 
Professor  Curtis’s  idea  of  self-expression. 
The  latter  idea  seems  to  have  the  reality 
Bushnell  was  reaching  after.  5.  His  con¬ 
tention  that  this  world  is  not  being  conducted 
on  principles  of  absolute  and  stringent 
justice  is  correct.  Such  a  view  would  pre¬ 
clude  forgiveness.  6.  But  you  do  not  feel 
that  he  has  found  the  real  root  of  the  demand 
for  the  atonement.  His  is  a  nobly  Christian 
mind  moving  toward  the  haven  with  the 
haven  not  yet  in  sight.  The  great  true  thing 
about  Bushnell  in  relation  to  theology  was 
his  profound  conviction  that  theology 
must  not  be  a  dead  formula  but  a  living 
reality.  It  must  be  a  perfect  dynamo  of 
vital  energy. 


186 


ROBERT  WILLIAM  DALE  AND 
HIS  THEOLOGY,  WITH 
SPECIAL  CONSIDERATION  OF 
HIS  THEORY  OF  THE 
ATONEMENT 


CHAPTER  VII 


ROBERT  WILLIAM  DALE  AND  HIS  THEOL¬ 
OGY,  WITH  SPECIAL  CONSIDERATION 
OF  HIS  THEORY  OF  THE  ATONEMENT 

I.  The  Man  and  His  Work 

One  day  a  visitor  to  the  English  city  of 
Birmingham  sought  out  the  Carr’s  Lane 
Congregational  Church.  He  walked  to  and 
fro  in  front  of  the  building  looking  up  at  it. 
And  as  he  walked  he  thought,  “It  is  here 
that  so  great  a  preacher  proclaims  the  ever¬ 
lasting  gospel.”  The  visitor  was  Andrew 
M.  Fairbairn,  the  future  principal  of  Mans¬ 
field  College,  Oxford,  and  the  preacher  who 
had  so  stirred  his  admiration  by  a  volume  of 
printed  sermons  was  Dr.  Robert  William 
Dale.  More  than  this  young  Congrega¬ 
tional  scholar  looked  upon  Carr’s  Lane  and 
its  pastor  with  enthusiasm.  He  was 
Birmingham’s  greatest  preacher,  one  of  its 
most  potent  civic  forces,  and  a  man  whose 
influence  reached  far  over  England. 

In  December,  1829,  Dale  was  born.  His 

189 


THE  QUEST  FOR  WONDER 


father  was  a  manufacturer  of  hat  trimmings. 
The  home  was  more  than  serious  enough, 
but  under  its  austerity  there  was  a  deep  and 
warm  affection.  It  was  the  great  desire  of 
the  mother  that  her  son  “Bobby”  should  be 
a  minister,  and  for  this  she  was  “willing  to 
make  any  sacrifice.”  Dale  was  sent  to 
private  schools,  not  always  fortunately 
chosen,  but  even  as  a  boy  he  showed  more 
fondness  for  books  than  for  play.  At  four¬ 
teen  he  was  deeply  engaged  with  Butler’s 
Analogy,  and  before  he  was  sixteen  he  had 
a  written  philosophical  discussion  with  a 
Scotch  metaphysician. 

At  fourteen  he  became  an  assistant  school¬ 
master.  Religious  struggles  began  about 
this  time.  He  tells  how  he  read  James’s 
“Anxious  Enquirer”  on  his  knees,  and  in 
keen  distress  about  his  personal  salvation. 
His  own  words  must  tell  of  his  conversion. 
“At  last — how,  I  cannot  tell — all  came  clear: 
I  ceased  thinking  of  myself  and  of  my  faith, 
and  thought  only  of  Christ:  then  I  won¬ 
dered  that  I  should  have  been  perplexed 
for  even  a  single  hour.” 

At  the  age  of  fifteen  Dale  was  received 

190 


DALE 


into  the  church  and  soon  began  preaching. 
Even  then  the  qualities  of  his  preaching 
caused  hearers  to  feel  that  the  ministry 
should  be  his  life-work.  Difficulties  were  re¬ 
moved  and  at  the  age  of  eighteen  Dale  found 
himself  in  Spring  Hill  College,  Birming¬ 
ham.  In  the  school  Henry  Rogers,  a  contrib¬ 
utor  to  the  Spectator  in  its  greatest  days, 
deeply  influenced  Dale.  From  him  the 
young  student  learned  to  care  profoundly 
for  real  literary  qualities  of  style.  He  was  a 
diligent  student  and  his  scholastic  career  was 
one  of  unusual  distinction.  At  this  time 
George  Dawson,  the  brilliant  Birmingham 
preacher  who  vigorously  expressed  his  social 
ideals,  exercised  what  was  to  be  a  lasting 
influence  over  Dale,  who  caught  his  civic  pas¬ 
sion  without  imbibing  his  less  desirable  ideas. 
By  this  time  John  Angel  James,  for  fifty 
years  pastor  of  the  important  Carr’s  Lane 
Congregational  Church,  had  his  eye  upon 
the  able  young  student.  The  degree  of 
M.  A.  having  been  received  from  London 
Unr versify.  Dale  found  himself  first  the 
assistant,  then  the  co-pastor  of  Dr.  James  at 
Carr’s  Lane.  Upon  the  death  of  Dr.  James 

191 


THE  QUEST  FOR  WONDER 


in  1859  Dale  was  made  sole  pastor  of  the 
Church,  which  position  he  held  for  thirty- 
five  years.  We  will  not  attempt  to  follow 
the  life  of  multifarious  activity  which  now 
opened  upon  him,  but  will  content  ourselves 
with  speaking  briefly  of  some  of  its  aspects. 

Dale  was  first  of  all  a  preacher.  His 
sermons  from  the  first  moved  in  stately 
fashion  at  a  lofty  height.  He  wrote  and 
read  them  because  he  was  unwilling  to  trust 
his  exhaustless  fertility  of  speech.  His 
sermons  were  not  always  within  the  compre¬ 
hension  of  all  of  his  audience,  but  a  poor 
woman  who  confessed  that  she  never  under¬ 
stood  them  said  that  she  was  so  helped  by 
his  prayers  that  she  always  came  to  church. 
And  he  preached  sermons.  There  was  no 
self-conscious  garnishing  of  style,  and  no 
seeking  for  a  reputation  for  profundity. 
The  depth  of  his  thought  was  the  natural 
outcome  of  a  mighty  mental  inquiry  applied 
to  great  problems ;  the  high  level  of  his  style 
was  a  real  expression  of  the  man.  He  was 
a  preacher  of  courage.  When  he  had  been 
at  Carr’s  Lane  for  years  he  was  able  to  say, 
“I  have  never  feared,  and  I  have  never 

192 


DALE 


flattered  you.”  The  truths  of  the  faith 
mastered  him,  and  he  forged  them  into  ser¬ 
mons  poured  forth  at  white  heat;  practical 
Christian  ethics  claimed  him,  and  a  passion 
for  righteousness  penetrating  every  depart¬ 
ment  of  life  glowed  at  Carr’s  Lane,  then 
out  over  England;  the  glories  of  the  inner 
life  of  the  Christian  shone  upon  his  soul, 
and  then  transfigured  his  pulpit. 

In  the  early  days  he  had  been  told  that 
Carr’s  Lane  people  would  not  stand  doc¬ 
trinal  preaching.  He  replied  that  they 
would  have  to  stand  it.  “I  think  God  could 
hardly  confer  upon  this  country  a  greater 
blessing,”  he  declared,  “than  in  reawakening 
that  intense  interest  in  religious  doctrine 
which  characterized  the  heroic  men  who  be¬ 
longed  to  the  times  of  the  commonwealth.” 
So  he  kept  Carr’s  Lane’s  great  congrega¬ 
tions  hanging  eagerly  upon  his  words  as  he 
spoke  of  the  great  doctrines,  and  even 
preached  to  them  his  theory  of  the  atone¬ 
ment.  And  not  only  Carr’s  Lane  but 
England  listened. 

All  the  while  Dale  was  becoming  a  great 
municipal  power.  He  had  imbibed  the  ideals 

193 


THE  QUEST  FOR  WONDER 


of  men  like  Dawson  and  threw  himself 
heartily  into  every  plan  for  the  betterment 
of  the  city.  In  counting  the  influences  that 
have  made  Birmingham  “the  best  governed 
city  in  the  world”  Dale’s  contribution  will 
be  found  to  be  a  very  important  one.  From 
municipal  affairs  to  politics  is  a  short  step, 
and  Dale  grew  to  be  a  great  political  power. 
A  quotation  from  a  speech  by  Joseph 
Chamberlain  made  after  his  final  election  to 
Parliament  will  illustrate  this.  “I  have  seen 
a  statement,”  said  Mr.  Chamberlain,  “that 
I  go  to  Parliament  as  the  representative  of 
Mr.  Dale.  Well,  if  that  be  so,  there  is  not  a 
member  of  the  House  of  Commons  who  will 
have  a  better,  nobler,  or  wiser  constituency.” 
There  is  not  space  to  tell  how,  inspired  by 
a  vision  of  the  reign  of  Christ  in  the  affairs 
of  men,  he  threw  himself  into  politics  and 
became  a  great  Liberal  leader.  In  city  and 
in  nation  his  influence  was  a  pressure  always 
toward  the  reign  of  right  and  righteousness 
in  public  affairs. 

Then  Dale  was  a  great  educator.  Inter¬ 
ested  in  different  kinds  of  schools,  studying 
their  problems  and  taking  part  in  their  con- 

194 


DALE 


trol,  lie  became  a  national  educational  figure. 
He  was  the  deciding  factor  in  the  removing 
of  Spring  Hill  College  to  Oxford;  and 
Mansfield  College  is  to-day  the  great  monu¬ 
ment  of  his  educational  influence. 

Recognition  after  recognition  came  to 
him.  Chairman  of  the  Congregational 
Union,  LL.D.  from  Glasgow,  member  of 
Koval  Commission  on  elementary  education, 
chairman  of  International  Council  of  Con¬ 
gregational  Churches — such  are  a  few 
honors  which  come  quickly  to  mind.  In 
Australia  he  spoke  in  city  after  city,  return¬ 
ing  to  a  great  welcome  in  Birmingham  typi¬ 
fied  by  the  large  printed  greeting,  “We  love 
vou  and  we  tell  vou  so.”  In  America  he 
gave  the  Yale  lectures  on  preaching,  noble 
utterances  voicing  intellectual  and  spiritual 
ideals  every  preacher  might  well  make  his 
own.  He  wrote  sermons,  pamphlets,  and 
books,  achieving  a  style  Sir  William  Rob¬ 
ertson  Xicoll  has  called  “one  of  the  most 
perfect  in  the  whole  range  of  English 
Literature.”  Dean  Alford  reviewed  a  vol¬ 
ume  of  his  sermons  with  enthusiasm.  West- 
cott  wrote  with  warm  appreciation  of  his 

195 


THE  QUEST  FOR  WONDER 


work  on  Ephesians,  and  Cardinal  Newman 
paid  tribute  to  his  book  on  the  atonement. 

Even  this  is  not  all.  This  busy,  active, 
versatile  man  found  time  in  lonely  medita¬ 
tion  to  become  in  a  notable  sense  a  great 
mystic.  His  journey  to  Palestine  with  its 
hours  of  quiet  musing  left  its  mark  upon 
his  life.  Then  great  personal  bereavement 
came.  And  the  terrible  disruption  of  the 
Liberal  party  caused  his  retirement  from 
political  life.  He  became  ill  and  had  period 
after  period  of  enforced  idleness  and  suffer¬ 
ing.  And  out  of  this  sorrow  and  disap¬ 
pointment  he  went,  not  to  an  embittered  and 
cynical  old  age,  but  to  a  sunset  glory  of 
communion  with  God. 

Now  his  sermons  came  to  glow  with  the 
light  of  this  hidden  communion.  He  made 
the  discovery  in  his  own  words  that  “Christ 
is  alive,”  and  every  Sunday  morning  his 
people  were  asked  to  sing  an  Easter  hymn. 
He  wrote  sermons  and  books  enriched  with 
a  spiritual  depth  and  power,  unknown  be¬ 
fore  even  in  his  fertile  ministry. 

Then,  in  1895,  the  end  came.  Birming¬ 
ham  and  England  joined  to  do  him  honor. 

196 


DALE 


No  such  concourse  had  been  seen  for  many 
years  as  his  funeral  procession.  “Above  on 
the  sandstone  cliff  in  which  the  cemetery  is 
quarried,  on  the  long  platform  of  the  rail¬ 
way  station,  and  on  the  station  roof  itself 
men  and  women  stood  in  serried  lines,  and 
from  beyond  the  walls  came  the  murmur  of 
unseen  thousands  outside.”  In  West¬ 
minster  Abbey  and  in  Saint  Paul’s  Cathe¬ 
dral,  as  well  as  all  over  the  country,  voices 
were  lifted  in  eager  tribute.  It  had  been 
a  life  of  amazing  energy  and  versatility  and 
a  life  of  great  achievement.  But  best  of 
all  it  had  been  the  life  of  a  man  of  God. 

II.  Daleys  Theology 

In  approaching  Dale’s  theology  we  must 
remind  ourselves  of  some  of  the  outstanding 
features  of  the  theological  situation  in  which 
he  found  himself.  ITe  was  an  heir  of  the 
Puritan  movement  and  two  great  things 
came  down  to  him  from  it.  First  there  was 
an  almost  overwhelming  sense  of  God.  The 
Puritan,  to  paraphrase  some  one’s  words, 
feared  God  so  much  that  he  feared  nothing 
else.  And  the  movement  gave  to  its  sons  a 

197 


THE  QUEST  FOR  WONDER 


sense  of  the  height  and  majesty  of  God. 
Puritanism  had  seen  Isaiah’s  vision  of  the 
holy  God,  and  never  forgot  the  awful  glory 
of  the  experience.  Then  Puritanism  be¬ 
lieved  in  God  reigning.  It  had  been  almost 
a  theocracy  in  the  davs  of  the  commonwealth. 
And  in  the  blood  of  its  sons  there  throbbed 
an  eagerness  for  the  Christian  conquest  of 
national  life.  To  an  heir  of  Cromwell 
theology  could  never  be  simply  an  affair  of 
the  cloister. 

But  the  eighteenth  century  had  spread  the 
palsying  blight  of  deism  over  England. 
Deism  was  the  theory  of  the  absent  God 
and  the  self-sufficient  man.  One  good  thing 
had  come  from  deism — a  sense  that  man  and 
man’s  powers  must  he  taken  account  of. 
For  at  this  point  the  Calvinistie  Puritan  was 
weakest.  He  was  so  dazzled  by  his  vision  of 

•j 

God  that  he  could  not  see  man.  It  was 
great  to  have  this  vision  of  God,  but  man 
must  be  taken  account  of.  And  Calvinism 
had  hard  and  rigid  things  to  say  about  man 
and  God’s  relation  to  him.  Its  theorv  of 
the  atonement  had  been  constructed  with 
bars  of  steel  fastened  by  iron  bolts.  It  was 

198 


DALE 


strong,  but  it  was  cruel.  In  alleviation  of 
this,  theories  of  public  justice  which  sought 
to  explain  the  atonement  as  a  feature  of 
God’s  judicial  dealing  with  men  were  intro¬ 
duced. 

In  this  atmosphere  of  mitigated  Cal¬ 
vinism  Dale  received  his  own  theological 
training.  The  out-and-out  reaction  from 
Calvinism  which  preferred  no  God,  to  the 
God  of  the  Calvinist,  cannot  be  said  to  have 
influenced  Dale.  He  felt  that  Christianity 
must  be  rational,  but  had  not  a  particle  of 
the  rationalist  in  him.  But  he  was  more  than 
a  son  of  the  Puritan  movement — he  was  a 
son  of  the  great  revival.  Wesley  had 
created  a  living  church,  and  helped  to  give 
new  life  to  the  existing  churches.  A  real 
Christian  experience  makes  a  new  man  of 
your  theologian,  and  Dale  had  a  real  Chris¬ 
tian  experience.  The  root  of  everything  in 
his  theology  is  that  he  had  found  forgive¬ 
ness,  peace,  and  life  in  the  salvation  of 
Christ.  This  will  help  to  account  for  the 
small  effect  the  tractarian  movement  had 
upon  him.  The  tractarian  movement  was  a 
great  seeking  for  religious  authority,  and  a 

199 


THE  QUEST  FOR  WONDER 


finding  of  it  in  the  church.  A  living  ex¬ 
perience  of  the  power  of  Christ  set  Dale  free 
from  the  dangers  of  this  quest. 

The  broad  church  movement  had  real 
points  of  contact  with  him.  Its  passion  for 
Christianity  dominant  in  life  was  his  own. 
Its  rejoicing  sense  of  all  Christ  was  touched 
his  sympathy.  Rut  to  Dale  Christianity 
must  have  a  deeper  root  than  it  gave.  He 
could  rest  only  in  a  theology  which  found 
its  center  in  a  mighty  expiation. 

Coming  now  to  Dale’s  own  theology.  He 
never  wrote  it  out  in  a  complete  system;  it 
must  be  gleaned  from  his  various  utterances. 
He  had  brought  his  powerful  mind  to  bear 
upon  problem  after  problem.  And  his 
thinking  moved  in  the  direction  of  a  system. 

Let  us  begin  with  the  great  question  of 
authority.  He  dealt  with  it  in  an  epoch- 
making  book,  The  Living  Christ  and  the 
Four  Gospels.  The  portrait  of  Christ  is  by 
its  own  power  morally  convincing,  he  tells 
us.  And  when  a  man  submits  himself  to 
the  gospel  message  and  accepts  the  Saviour 
he  comes  to  know  for  himself,  for  salvation 
is  the  revelation  of  the  living  Christ  in  his 

200 


DALE 


own  life.  This  experience  of  his  is  confirmed 
by  the  similar  experiences  of  sixty  genera¬ 
tions  of  Christians  all  over  the  world.  Here 
is  a  great  Gibraltar.  The  church  is  sure 
because  it  knows.  Its  experience  vindicates 
the  authority  of  Christ.  How  much  this 

•j 

message  meant  as  it  traveled  over  England 

and  America  in  the  days  of  a  brilliant  and 

•/ 

destructive  criticism  it  would  be  hard  ade¬ 
quately  to  say.  It  was  one  of  Dale’s  noblest 
messages  to  the  church. 

Coming  to  Dale’s  conception  of  God,  we 
find  that  even  his  theism  felt  the  warmth 
of  his  experience.  A  man  was  to  be  a  theist 
not  simply  with  his  head.  Pie  was  to  ex¬ 
perience  his  theism.  Dale’s  whole  theology 
was  colored  by  the  sweeping  majesty  of  his 
conception  of  God.  It  gathered  together 
the  noblest  things  of  Puritanism,  and  fused 
them  in  a  personal  experience  of  awe  in  the 
presence  of  the  Most  High. 

Dale’s  speculations  regarding  the  Trinity 
reveal  a  certain  philosophical  inaptitude.  He 
speaks  of  the  Father  as  though  he  were  the 
transcendent  one,  the  Holy  Spirit  the  im¬ 
manent  one,  and  the  Son  the  personal  re- 

201 


THE  QUEST  FOR  WONDER 


vealer.  But  he  is  clear  in  his  assertion  that 
“There  are  not  three  Gods,  but  in  the  life 
and  being  of  the  One  God  there  are  three 
centers  of  consciousness,  volition,  and 
activity.” 

a/ 

In  dealing  with  man  we  come  upon  Dale’s 
belief  that  man’s  very  life  roots  in  a  higher 
life,  that  apart  from  this  higher  life,  he  has 
no  life  of  his  own.  Sin  is  not  only  the  rejec¬ 
tion  of  moral  and  spiritual  well-being.  It 
is  the  rejection  of  the  root  of  life  itself.  So 
Dale  came  ultimately  to  believe  in  the  an- 
nihilation  of  the  finally  perverse.  The 
important  thing  at  this  point  is  to  see  what 
an  organic  part  of  his  thought  this  view  was. 
Its  inadequacy  had  its  roots  deep  in  his 
thought.  His  method  of  dealing  with  free¬ 
dom  and  sin,  and  man’s  relation  to  the  race, 
reveals  a  noble  man  in  the  difficulties  of 
intellectual  problems  which  he  tried  ineffec¬ 
tually  to  solve.  He  had  an  overwhelming 
sense  of  sin,  nobly  Christian  in  its  whole 
quality.  But  the  tragedy  of  moral  evil  was 
sin  to  him.  He  made  the  terrible  mistake 
of  concluding  that  man  was  a  sharer  in  the 
responsibility  for  sins  to  which  he  had  no 

202 


DALE 


relation  of  personal  choice.  The  failure 
here  is  seen  throughout  his  discussion.  He 
tried  to  preserve  man’s  freedom  and  to  be 
just  to  his  personal  life.  But  he  never  really 
succeeded — and  he  never  knew  that  he  failed. 
There  was  enough  Calvinism  in  his  blood 
to  give  him  content  with  inadequate  views. 
But  deeper  than  this  he  was  sure  that  he 
could  trust  the  race  to  the  God  who  had 
cared  enough  for  it  to  give  it  Calvary. 

His  conception  of  redemption  we  will 
soon  consider  in  detail.  The  church  was  the 
body  of  men  and  women  who  possessed  the 
new  life  in  Christ.  It  could  not  be  rightly 
a  state  church,  for  that  included  those  who 
did  not  have  the  life  in  Christ.  The  seat  of 
church  government  and  authority  was  those 
who  enjoyed  this  life.  The  sacraments 
were  not  a  magical  rite,  but  the  Lord’s 
Supper  was  more  than  a  memorial.  It  was 
a  spiritual  opportunity.  Here  the  Christian 
could  receive  spiritually  the  life  of  his  Lord. 
Sanctification  was  the  life  in  Christ  victori¬ 
ously  possessing  the  Christian.  Immortality 
this  victorious  life  in  its  endless  progression. 
The  doom  of  the  wicked,  the  absence  of  all 

203 


THE  QUEST  FOR  WONDER 


life,  even  existence,  because  thev  utterly 
turned  from  the  offered  life  in  Christ. 

Dale’s  theology  was  Christian  doctrine 
construed  from  the  standpoint  of  a  personal 
experience  of  the  life  in  Christ.  Its  strength 
was  in  this  triumphant  emphasis  on  Chris¬ 
tian  experience,  its  weakness  a  failure  to 
understand  that  personal  intention  is  the 
crucial  thing  in  human  life,  and  a  tendency 
to  add  to  the  ethical  personal  relation  of  the 
Christian  with  his  Lord  a  metaphysical  re¬ 
lation  which  can  hardly  be  cleared  of  the 
charge  of  pantheism,  and  of  which  we  shall 
see  more  in  his  theory  of  the  atonement. 

• j 

III.  Dale's  Theory  of  the  Atonement 

Dale  was  trained,  as  we  have  seen,  in  a 
school  where  the  tendency  was  to  explain 
our  Lord’s  work  from  the  standpoint  of 
public  justice.  The  depth  of  his  own  reli¬ 
gious  experience  and  its  relation  to  a  pro¬ 
found  sense  of  sin  would  ultimately  have 

• j 

demanded  a  personal  reconsideration  of  the 
whole  problem.  But  the  theological  move¬ 
ment  toward  the  moral  view  of  our  Lord’s 
work,  which  became  more  and  more  influen- 

204 


DALE 


tial,  was  in  sharp  contrast  to  his  own  deepest 
religions  intuitions,  and  in  the  light  of  this 
fact  his  personal  grapple  with  the  great 
problem  was  made. 

BushnelTs  Vicarious  Sacrifice,  with  its 
fine  religious  feeling,  its  passion  for  all  noble 
things,  and  its  fascination  of  style,  was  seiz¬ 
ing  upon  men’s  minds,  as  a  vital  and  appeal¬ 
ing  treatment  of  the  problem.  Would  the 
whole  world  go  to  the  moral  view  ?  A  strong 
voice  needed  to  speak  if  this  was  to  be  pre¬ 
vented.  Then  Dale  spoke.  In  the  Congre¬ 
gational  LTnion  lecture,  delivered  in  1875, 
Dale  made  his  great  utterance.  He  was 
confronted  by  two  possible  views  of  the  work 
of  our  Lord.  Was  it  an  expiation,  or  was 
it  a  transcendent  act  to  win  men  from  sin? 
Was  the  great  problem  to  turn  men  from 
sin,  or  was  there  a  deeper  problem?  Was  it 
necessary  that  something  be  done  to  satisfy 
the  righteous  God  before  sin  could  be  re¬ 
mitted?  Of  course  in  any  view  our  Lord’s 
death  was  a  moral  power.  Dale  did  not 
dispute  this.  The  question  was,  Is  it  simply 
and  only  a  moral  power,  or  is  it  essentially 
expiation,  then  a  moral  power  also? 

205 


THE  QUEST  FOR  WONDER 


The  first  task  to  which  he  set  himself  was 
to  prove  that  the  New  Testament  concep¬ 
tion  is  that  the  death  of  Christ  was  an 
objective  atonement.  He  distinguished 
sharply  between  the  fact  and  any  theory  of 
it.  He  was  a  great  deal  more  interested  in 
the  fact  of  an  objective  atonement  than  its 
rationale.  That  fact  was  crucial. 

In  six  lectures  he  conducted  a  masterly 
argument.  The  history  of  our  Lord’s  life, 
his  words,  the  apostolic  consciousness,  all 
were  shown  to  involve  an  objective  atone¬ 
ment.  It  was  no  massing  of  proof-texts. 
He  showed  how  the  fact  of  an  objective 
atonement  was  a  part  of  the  movement  of 
the  apostles’  thought,  how  it  was  essential 
to  the  effectiveness  of  arguments  they  used, 
and  how  at  every  point  what  they  say  fits  in 
with  it,  and  that  they  absolutely  fail  to  say 
the  things  it  would  have  been  natural — even 
imperative — for  them  to  say  had  they  held 
the  moral  view.  Christ  and  his  apostles 
held,  whatever  we  may  hold,  that  his  death 
was  an  expiation  making  possible  the  for¬ 
giveness  of  sin. 

Following  his  exceedingly  vigorous  and 

20G 


DALE 


able  exposition  of  New  Testament  conscious¬ 
ness,  Dale  takes  a  survey  of  the  history  of 
the  interpretation  by  the  theologians  of  the 
church  of  our  Lord’s  death.  lie  shows  how 
Christian  consciousness  always  clung  to  the 
idea  of  an  objective  work  by  our  Lord. 
Sometimes  the  explanations  theologians 
gave  were  absurd.  There  was  plenty  of 
inadequacy  here.  But  through  it  all  Chris¬ 
tian  consciousness  clung  to  the  idea  of  an 
objective  work.  And  the  theologians  simply 
did  the  best  they  could  to  provide  a  rationale 
for  it.  Here,  then,  was  a  great  standing 
ground.  The  New  Testament  and  Chris¬ 
tian  consciousness  united  in  a  demand  for 
the  expiatory  view  of  Christ’s  death.  So 
much  was  firm  whether  a  theory  could  be 
found  for  it  or  not. 

Now  Dale  approaches  his  constructive 
work.  Can  light  be  thrown  on  this  fact 
that  our  Lord’s  death  is  the  ground  on  which 
our  sins  are  forgiven?  He  believes  it  is 
possible,  first,  by  considering  Christ’s  rela¬ 
tion  to  the  Eternal  Law  of  Righteousness; 
second,  by  considering  his  relation  to  the 
human  race. 


207 


THE  QUEST  FOR  WONDER 


The  ultimate  source  of  moral  distinction 
Dale  conceives  as  the  Eternal  Law  of 
Righteousness.  This  is  not  the  result  of  the 
will  of  God,  nor  does  it  find  its  source  in  the 
nature  of  God.  Rut  neither  is  it  superior 
to  God.  It  comes  to  life  in  him.  His  very 
moral  sovereignty  consists  in  his  perpetual 
assertion  of  his  oneness  with  it.  He  is  the 
moral  law  alive.  Punishment  is  conceived, 
not  as  a  means  of  improving  the  sinner,  nor 
as  a  means  of  preventing  others  from  wrong¬ 
doing,  nor  as  the  expression  of  wrath  be¬ 
cause  of  personal  injury  to  God.  It  is 
deserved  suffering  because  of  the  breaking 
of  the  law.  The  law  of  righteousness  neces¬ 
sarily  demands  the  eternal  expression  of  the 
fact  that  sin  deserves  to  be  punished.  And 
if  God  is  to  preserve  his  oneness  with  the 
Eternal  Law  of  Righteousness,  he  must  for¬ 
ever  declare  by  deed  that  fact. 

Can  sin,  then,  be  forgiven?  There  was  a 
conception  which  regarded  penalty  as  self¬ 
acting.  Page  after  page  is  devoted  to  the 
eloquent  overthrow  of  this  view.  It  simply 
does  not  correspond  to  the  facts  of  life.  Rut 
let  us  look  more  deeply  at  penalty.  Now, 

208 


DALE 


we  find  that  its  very  greatest  power  comes 
from  the  fact  that  it  is  a  personal  thing. 
The  God  who  is  one  with  the  Eternal  Law 
of  Righteousness  is  back  of  it.  It  is  not 
simply  the  work  of  a  mechanical  law.  It  is 
the  deed  of  a  God  who  is  Righteousness 
alive.  Xow,  if  God  ever  forgives  sin,  he 
must  find  some  way  of  asserting  this  prin¬ 
ciple  that  sin  deserves  to  be  punished,  of 
revealing  his  oneness  with  the  Eternal  Law 
of  Righteousness  which  shall  be  as  effective 
as  the  punishment  of  the  sinner.  Here  we 
come  to  the  crisis  in  the  discussion.  Christ — 
himself  God,  Judge  of  men — whose  pre¬ 
rogative  is  the  punishment  of  the  sinner, 
endures  the  punishment  instead  of  inflict¬ 
ing  it,  and  so  the  problem  is  solved.  God’s 
love  for  the  sinner  gives  his  punishment  of 
the  sinner  a  great  added  moral  significance. 
His  love  for  the  Son  makes  the  deed  on 
Calvarv,  when  the  Father  withdrew  his 
companionship  from  the  Son  and  left  him 
in  the  very  loneliness  of  a  condemned  sinner, 
an  act  of  divine  self-sacrifice  beyond  any¬ 
thing  of  which  we  could  have  conceived. 
This  is  the  grandest  moment  in  the  moral 

209 


THE  QUEST  FOR  WONDER 


history  of  God.  So  Christ  asserts  God’s 
oneness  with  the  Eternal  Law  of  Righteous¬ 
ness.  So  he  makes  possible  the  forgiveness 
of  sin. 

But  had  Christ  any  relation  to  the  race 
which  will  give  bod}^  and  stability  to  this 
interpretation?  Dale  replies  that  he  had, 
for  Christ  in  Dale’s  conception  is  basally 
connected  with  the  race’s  life.  He  is  its 
root  and  its  ideal  realization.  So  that  what 
he  does  is  in  a  unique  sense  a  race  deed. 
When  Christ  endures  on  Calvary  the  penalty 
of  sin,  it  is  in  a  recognition  within  the  race 
of  the  terrible  penal  desert  of  sin,  and  makes 
possible  on  the  part  of  men  the  same 
acknowledgment.  They  now  make  this 
verdict  on  the  justice  of  sin’s  receiving  such 
punishment  their  own,  through  the  power 
of  Christ,  the  race  representative. 

Now,  before  sin  entered  the  world  Christ 
was  actually  and  ideally  the  race  represen¬ 
tative  before  the  Father.  But  sin  broke 
right  across  this  relation.  When  the 
Saviour  was  incarnated  and  bore  sin’s  pen¬ 
alty,  he  secured  to  the  race,  in  spite  of  sin, 
and  by  that  very  act  made  possible,  the 

210 


DALE 


restoration  of  all  the  glorious  possibilities  of 
that  relation  as  originally  held.  But,  more 
than  this,  the  death  of  Christ,  through  his 
basal  connection  with  the  race,  is  the  death 
of  sin.  Those  who  accept  him  find  in  his 
death  the  slaying  of  their  own  sinfulness. 
Calvary  thus  completely  conquers  sin  and 
assures  the  victory  of  righteousness. 

To  sum  up: — Christ’s  death  is  an  objec¬ 
tive  atonement  for  sin:  1.  Because  his  sub¬ 
mission  to  the  penal  demands  of  law — he 
being  the  race  basis — is  an  expression  of 
ours  and  carries  ours  with  it.  2.  His  death 
renders  possible  the  very  relation  between 
the  race  and  Christ  which  sin  had  broken, 
with  all  its  infinite  promise.  3.  The  death 
of  Christ  invoh  res  the  destruction  of  sin  in 
those  who  accept  the  Saviour.  4.  The  death 
of  Christ  expresses  God’s  oneness  with  the 
Eternal  Law  of  Righteousness  as  perfectly 
as  it  would  be  expressed  by  the  punishment 
of  the  sinner. 

Here,  then,  the  problem  is  solved.  The 
Eternal  Law  of  Righteousness  has  received 
final  expression  as  one  with  God.  The  race 
has  been  given  the  supreme  opportunity  in 

211 


THE  QUEST  FOR  WONDER 


spite  of  sin  to  be  a  race  in  Christ  and  so 
secure  all  life  and  all  blessedness.  So  much 
in  exposition  of  Dr.  Dale’s  theory. 

Now,  for  our  own  question:  Can  we  ac¬ 
cept  it  as  a  satisfactory  account  of  the  work 
of  our  Lord?  Some  grave  difficulties 
emerge  at  once. 

1.  Dr.  Dale’s  conception  of  the  Eternal 
Law  of  Righteousness,  despite  all  his  pro¬ 
testations,  is  a  dethronement  of  God.  Dale 
tried  to  evade  the  difficultv  very  bravelv, 
but  after  all  was  said  he  left  God  the  sub¬ 
ject  of  a  Higher  than  He.  We  must  find 
the  source  of  the  moral  law  in  God  him¬ 
self.  When  Dale  said  that  the  source  of 
the  law  could  not  be  in  God’s  nature  he  was 
thinking  of  the  impossibility  of  its  being  a 
mere  attribute  of  God.  The  source  of  moral 
distinction  is  deeper  than  a  mere  attribute. 
It  is  at  the  basis  of  the  very  nature  of  God 
as  a  totality.  But  this  basal  thing  is  a  richer 
thing  than  Dale’s  Eternal  Law  of  Right¬ 
eousness.  Beginning  with  moral  distinction, 
it  includes  all  moral  harmony,  and  so  becomes 
the  Holiness  of  God.  Here  is  the  ultimate 
basis  of  morality.  You  cannot  get  back  of 

212 


DALE 


the  nature  of  God.  There  is  nothing  beyond 
that.  The  demand  for  an  atonement  comes 
not  from  God’s  allegiance  to  an  eternal  law 
of  righteousness,  which  we  cannot  find  ulti¬ 
mately  rooted  in  his  own  nature.  It  comes 
from  the  Holiness  which  is  God’s  own 
nature.  The  totality  of  God’s  nature  de¬ 
mands  Calvary. 

•/ 

2.  The  conception  of  Christ  as  the  race 

basis  demands  scrutiny.  Dale  uses  it  some- 

&/ 

what  uneasily  and  with  less  than  his  accus- 
tomed  clarity.  But  it  is  evident  that  he 

ft/ 

means  more  than  can  be  harmonized  with 
genuine  personal  relations.  He  means  more 
than  that  Christ’s  whole  attitude  toward  sin 
may  he  made  personal  in  the  Christian’s  life 
through  the  power  of  God.  He  means  more 
than  that  it  sets  free  divine  energies  which 
enter  the  life  as  we  accept  the  Saviour.  And 
the  thing  lie  means  is  a  sort  of  metaphysical 
oneness  which  goes  a  long  way  toward  spell¬ 
ing  pantheism.  Here  we  strike  a  root  of 
failure  in  Dale’s  thinking.  A  sharp  notion 
of  the  integrity  of  personality  is  quite 
lacking.  His  notion  of  sin,  his  notion  of 
redemption,  his  notion  of  the  life  in 

213 


THE  QUEST  FOR  WONDER 


Christ  are  vitiated  because  he  did  not  think 
of  sin  as  a  thing  with  personal  intention 
necessarily  behind  it,  of  redemption  as  a 
process  which  at  every  step  must  have  re¬ 
gard  to  the  demands  of  man  as  a  personal 
being  and  the  life  in  Christ  as  a  relation 
always  consistent  with  the  integrity  of  per- 
sonality.  The  incarnation  wras  necessary 
because  God  could  be  satisfied  only  with  a 
deed  achieved  in  the  human  race,  and  only 
such  a  deed  could  be  redemptively  appro¬ 
priated  by  man.  No  metaphysical  relation 
of  Christ  to  the  race  can  make  his  deed  the 
race’s  possession  except  as  it  is  personally 
appropriated.  The  flaw  in  Dale’s  thinking 
at  this  point  is  that  it  gives  us  a  feature  of 
redemption  which  conflicts  with  the  integrity 
of  the  personal,  ethical  life. 

In  conclusion,  a  few  words  of  apprecia¬ 
tion  of  Dale’s  work  on  the  atonement: 

1.  It  shows  us  a  man  trying  to  get  a 
theory  which  will  adequately  express  his 
Christian  experience.  This  must  always  be 
the  mood  of  the  theologian.  It  gives  Dale’s 
work  an  atmosphere  full  of  the  Christian 
quality.  We  sympathize  with  what  he  is 

214 


DALE 


after,  even  when  we  do  not  think  he  has 
found  it. 

2.  He  is  trying  to  be  true  to  the  New 
Testament.  He  listens  eagerly,  not  merely 
to  its  words,  but  to  its  heart-beats.  He 
wants  to  find  what  was  the  deep  New  Testa¬ 
ment  feeling  about  redemption,  what  was 
its  consciousness,  and  he  wants  to  be  true  to 
it.  Here  he  is  a  guide  to  all  Christian 
thinkers. 

3.  The  distinction  he  makes  between  fact 
and  theory  is  very  important.  Of  course 
Professor  Denney  is  right  in  contending 
that  it  must  be  more  than  a  blank  fact.  But 
there  is  a  difference  between  saying  that 
Christ  assumed  our  responsibilities,  and 
wrought  our  redemption,  and  having  a 
worked-out  theory  of  our  Lord’s  work.  The 
fact,  with  this  content,  does  not  constitute 
a  theory.  And  Dale  was  right  about  this 
fact  being  absolutely  important.  Typi¬ 
cal  Christian  experience  has  over  and  over 
again  rested  on  this  fact,  when  no  articu¬ 
lated  theory  could  be  given.  If  the  church 
is  to  keep  typical  Christian  experience, 
this  fact  must  be  kept  before  men’s  minds, 

215 


THE  QUEST  FOR  WONDER 

whether  an  adequate  theory  can  be  given  or 
not. 

4.  The  two  great  notes  which  Dale  struck 
— Christ’s  relation  to  the  Ultimate  Moral 
Demand,  and  Christ’s  relation  to  the  Human 
Race— must  never  be  lost  sight  of.  They 
will  have  to  be  treated  more  adequately,  but 
treated  they  must  be. 

5.  Few  books  could  be  better  fitted  to 
give  a  man  the  right  temper,  the  right  ambi¬ 
tion,  and  the  real  Christian  emphasis  in 
personal  grapple  with  the  great  problem, 
than  this  volume  by  Dale.  And  it  will  be 
a  personal  inspiration  to  every  man  who 
rightly  reads  it. 


216 


THE  THEOLOGICAL  SITUATION 
REGARDING  THE  ATONEMENT 


CHAPTER  VIII 


THE  THEOLOGICAL  SITUATION 
REGARDING  THE  ATONEMENT 

I 

Some  General  Characteristics  of  the 
Present  Theological  Situation 

Probably  many  an  observer  of  present- 
day  thought-movements  would  deny  that 
there  is  a  theological  situation  regarding 
anything.  Theology,  he  would  say,  we  have 
outgrown  and  discarded.  The  subtle  dis¬ 
tinctions  of  schoolmen  no  longer  concern 
men  under  the  heavy  pressure  of  the  condi¬ 
tions  of  actual  life.  Even  the  preacher  who 
holds  his  congregation  has  to  become  undog- 
matic.  If  a  man  chooses  to  spin  out  theo¬ 
logical  theories  by  the  pale  glow  of  his  study 
lamp,  let  him  do  it;  but  he  has  no  real  rela¬ 
tion  to  the  thought  and  activity  of  the  time. 
Out  under  the  hot  ravs  of  the  sun,  the 

•j  ' 

world’s  workers  are  busv,  and  have  time  for 
only  the  thought  which  is  vital  and  prac¬ 
tical.  Men  care  about  what  Jesus  taught  in 
the  Sermon  on  the  Mount ;  that  is  practical. 

219 


THE  QUEST  FOR  WONDER 

They  do  not  stop  to  waste  their  time  and 
energy  in  quarreling  over  who  he  was:  that 
is  irreverent,  and  useless.  Practical  Chris¬ 
tian  ethics  has  a  great  future;  speculative 
theology  is  dead.  There  is  not  time  even  to 
bury  it  decently;  we  are  busy  with  the  de¬ 
mands  of  the  present.  “Let  the  dead  past 
bury  its  dead.”  But  theology,  like  Banquo’s 
ghost,  will  not  be  disposed  of  so  easily.  The 
truth  of  the  matter  is  that  man  is  a  theo¬ 
logical  being,  and  forsakes  theology  only  to 
return  to  it.  We  really  cannot  get  away 
from  our  nature,  and  it  is  not  of  much  use  to 
try.  The  patronizing  loftiness  with  which 
many  men  view  those  who  still  care  about 
theology  is  so  transitory  that  we  need  not 
be  disturbed  about  it.  The  human  mind 
must  ask  theological  questions  and  ulti¬ 
mately  will  demand  some  sort  of  an  answer, 
and  when  the  hazy  indefiniteness  has  been 
cleared  from  much  of  present-day  thinking 
we  will  begin  to  realize  that  more  than 
mental  gratification  is  at  stake  in  the  answer 
to  the  theological  questions.  Man’s  whole 
practical  life  roots  in  the  realities  with  which 
these  questions  deal.  It  makes  all  the  dif- 

220 


THE  ATONEMENT 


ference  in  the  world  whether  you  have  a 
theology  of  hope  or  a  theology  of  despair; 
and  no  theology  amounts  ultimately  to  the 
same  thing  as  a  theology  of  despair.  If 
morality  and  religion  are  to  survive,  we 
must  believe  that  the  very  structure  of  the 
universe  takes  sides  with  them.  For  the  sake 
of  righteousness  and  practical  piety  the 
great  theological  questions  must  be  an¬ 
swered,  not  by  specious  evasions,  but  by 
resolute  affirmations.  So  we  will  approach 
the  examination  of  the  present  theological 
situation  feeling  that  those  who  concern 
themselves  with  these  things  in  a  positive 
wav  have  the  future  on  their  side.  At  the 

%j 

very  start  we  will  declare  ourselves  free  from 

•/ 


the  vitiating  insistence  of  the  Zeitgeist  that 
one  must  not  affirm  anything  about  God 
for  fear  of  being  dogmatic. 

Let  us  now  try  to  look  upon  the  present 
situation  more  closely. 

1.  The  most  outstanding  fact  in  all  typical 
present  thinking  is  modern  science.  “The 
reign  of  law”  expresses  in  a  phrase  the  great 
discovery  of  the  nineteenth  century.  Law 

mJ 

was  first  discovered,  then  deified.  The  great 


221 


THE  QUEST  FOR  WONDER 


philosophical  heresy  is  the  viewing  of  law  as 
self-active  and  self-supporting.  In  every 
direction,  outside  the  church  and  within,  men 
are  afraid  of  this  mighty  uniform  machine 
which  they  have  discovered  the  universe  to 
be.  They  fancy  that  laws  have  strength  of 
their  own.  At  this  point  the  corrective  much 
modern  thought  needs  is  the  understanding 
that  laws  can  do  nothing ;  that  in  themselves 
they  are  nothing.  A  law  is  only  a  name  for 
the  way  in  which  God  works.  A  law  with¬ 
out  a  person  is  as  impossible  as  an  idea  with¬ 
out  a  mind.  The  cosmic  history  can  be 
summed  up  in  a  brief  sentence — “God  acts.” 
The  deification  of  law  is  at  the  root  of  an 
enormous  amount  of  the  inadequacy  of 
modern  thought. 

2.  A  second  characteristic  of  the  present 
situation  grows  out  of  the  results  of  modern 
biblical  scholarship.  The  scientific  method 
had  been  applied  to  the  study  of  the  Scrip¬ 
tures  with  results  revolutionary,  if  not 
destructive.  That  much  which  has  been  con¬ 
fidently  asserted  consists  of  brilliant  hypo¬ 
theses,  rather  than  well-fortified  conclusions, 
we  may  readily  admit,  but  enough  has  corn- 

222 


THE  ATONEMENT 

manded  the  practically  universal  consent  of 
scholars  to  make  it  possible  to  speak  of  re¬ 
sults  of  biblical  criticism.  In  certain  respects 
it  will  never  be  possible  for  thoughtful  men 
to  look  upon  the  Bible  in  the  same  way 
again.  More  than  this:  these  results  have 
outlawed  widely  accepted  views  as  to  the 
inspiration  and  authority  of  the  Bible.  It  is 
no  longer  possible  to  regard  it  as  verbally 
inspired  or  mechanically  authoritative.  Is 
Christianity  itself  at  stake?  By  no  means. 
But  the  theories  as  to  God’s  method  in  his 
revelation,  which  are  at  stake,  are  so  widely 
spread  that  a  confusion  of  thought  which 
makes  them  one  with  the  faith  itself  is  all 
too  easy  and  natural.  This  helps  to  account 
for  the  great  unrest  within  the  Church  and 
the  increase  of  skepticism  without.  But 
Christian  thinkers  have  not  been  without 
power  to  deal  with  this  situation.  The  way 
out  of  the  confusion,  we  are  beginning  to 
understand,  is  to  regard  God’s  message  as 
“psychologically  mediated”  and  its  authority 
as  the  result,  not  of  uncertain  and  external 
defenses,  but  of  what  we  may  call  its  moral 
and  “spiritual  cogency.”  To  the  man  who 

223 


THE  QUEST  FOR  WONDER 

accepts  Christianity  because  it  alone  fits  his 
needs,  frees  him  from  sin,  and  completes 
his  life,  external  and  mechanical  theories  of 
the  Bible  are  so  needless  that  he  loses  them 
without  regret.  Without  a  conception  of 
the  authority  of  the  Bible  as  vital,  the  results 
of  modern  criticism  are  alarming;  with  it, 
criticism  is  interesting  and  useful  when 
reverent:  it  is  something  to  be  strenuously 
opposed  where  guided  by  poisonously  ration¬ 
alistic  presuppositions;  but  in  either  case  it 
is  unable  to  touch  the  profound  certainties 
of  the  Christian  faith.  The  way  to  deal  with 
even  the  worst  phases  of  criticism,  where 
a  destructive  conclusion  has  murderously 
lurked  in  premises  of  the  scholar’s  thinking, 
is  to  come  to  the  same  problems  with  Chris¬ 
tian  experience  and  Christian  intuition.  If 
Christian  experience  is  kept  alive,  it  can  be 
trusted  to  deal  with  all  the  problems  of  criti¬ 
cism  and  to  adjust  itself  to  all  the  legitimate 
results  of  scholarship.  The  worst  result  of 
criticism  is  when  a  man  makes  it  an  excuse 
to  turn  from  unpleasant  realities  and  shut 
the  deeps  of  his  life  from  just  the  truth  he 
needs.  The  remedy  is  not  to  curse  criticism 

224 


THE  ATONEMENT 


but  to  become  passionately  honest  and 
earnest  men. 

3.  Another  characteristic  of  our  time  is 
the  prevalence  of  Christian  experience  which 
is  not  typical.  One  of  the  thought-provok¬ 
ing  features  of  the  life  of  the  church  is  the 
prevalence  of  devotion  to  Christ  which  has 
not  the  New  Testament  ring.  There  are 
great  Christians  who  are  strangers  to  some 
of  the  characteristic  moods  of  apostolic 
Christianitv;  and  it  is  their  loss.  Because 
of  the  type  of  their  experience  both  their 
theology  and  their  scholarship  are  vitiated. 
The  fault  is  that  the  whole  nature  has  not 
been  listened  to  in  its  call  for  Christ.  There 
has  been  no  thoroughgoing  moral  struggle 
which  flung  the  life  helpless  until  the  Saviour 
came.  The  great  need  of  the  church  is  a 
universal  redemptional  consciousness  among 
Christians,  and  the  way  to  that  is  to  get  men 
into  the  current  of  deep  moral  struggle.  Let 
a  man  face  his  whole  life  under  the  stress  of 
the  demands  of  his  conscience,  and  in  this 
way  receive  Christ,  and  his  whole  bearing 
and  all  his  intuitions  will  become  typical  and 
trustworthy. 


22,5 


THE  QUEST  FOR  WONDER 


4.  A  feature  of  the  present  situation  for 
which  one  can  only  have  praise  is  the  deep¬ 
ened  ethical  sense  of  which  we  are  seeing 
constant  evidences.  The  whole  foundation 
of  Christianity  must  be  seen  to  be  clearly 
moral  if  men  are  to  be  satisfied  by  it. 
Presentations  of  doctrine  which  are  charac¬ 
terized  by  ethical  makeshift  can  have  no 
profound  seizure  upon  our  time.  It  would 
be  impossible  for  a  theory  of  “God’s  cheat¬ 
ing  the  devil  by  a  piece  of  sharp  practice” 
to  take  its  rise  to-day.  The  whole  study  of 
the  Bible  and  of  Christianity  has  a  new 
frankness  and  candor  and  a  new  honesty. 
Men  feel  that  it  is  no  longer  possible  to  deal 
with  Christian  truths  in  the  temper  of  the 
Jesuit.  Every  Christian  doctrine  must  be 
judged  at  the  bar  of  this  alert  ethical  sense. 

5.  Then  there  is  a  new  emphasis  on 
psychology.  The  facts  of  experience  must 
be  taken  account  of.  They  must  be  treated 
scientifically.  The  inner  life  of  men  is  a 
realm  for  careful  investigation.  While  it  is 
possible  to  do  exceedingly  superficial  work 
in  this  realm,  if  a  man  has  not  a  proper 
perspective  and  sense  of  values,  the  interest 

226 


THE  ATONEMENT 


in  psychology,  and  the  feeling  that  it  must 
he  taken  account  of,  is  very  hopeful  and  full 
of  possibility,  for  the  closer  you  get  to  an 
adequate  psychology  of  the  inner  life  the 
nearer  you  come  to  the  place  where  it  is  seen 
that  real  and  essential  Christianity  is  de¬ 
manded  by  the  nature  of  man. 

•/ 

6.  One  more  general  characteristic  of  the 
present  situation  is  its  dawning  social  vision. 
There  is  a  deepened  hunger  for  brotherhood, 
and  a  new  feeling  of  man’s  responsibility 
for  man.  The  most  vital  thought  of  the  time 
has  this  quality  of  eagerness  for  social  service 
and  for  a  social  goal.  It  has  permeated 
present-day  activities  and  created  vast 

JL  J 

philanthropies.  It  is  seen  in  the  ardent 
dreams  of  the  Socialist  and  the  quiet  service 
of  the  settlement  worker.  A  theology  which 
has  a  social  message  will  find  a  vital  point 
of  contact  here. 

The  attempt  to  deal  with  the  whole  situa¬ 
tion  which  we  have  been  discussing,  which 
has  obtained  the  greatest  influence,  has  been 
the  Ritschlian  theology.  The  Ritschlian 
theology  is  a  surrender  to  the  spirit  of  the 
times.  It  does  nothing  to  the  false  concep- 

227 


THE  QUEST  FOR  WONDER 

tion  of  law,  but  tries  to  formulate  a  theory 
of  Christianity  which  can  live  with  it.  It 
drops  every  Christian  emphasis  unpleasant 
to  the  modern  mind.  It  is  an  expression  of 
a  devotion  to  Christ  which  has  never  mea¬ 
sured  the  reaches  of  Christian  experience. 
It  does,  in  its  theory  of  value  judgments, 
move  in  the  right  direction  for  securing  a 
true  basis  for  the  authority  of  Christianity, 
but  in  the  refusal  to  allow  religious  truth  to 
be  related  to  scientific  truth  it  becomes  the 
creator  of  an  emasculated  Christianity.  It 
is  alert  to  avoid  ethical  makeshift,  but  fails 
to  discern  the  profoundest  ethical  realities  of 
life.  Its  psychology  is  that  of  the  bays  and 
inlets  of  human  life.  It  has  never  sounded 
the  great  deep.  Bring  a  man  profoundly 
convicted  of  sin  into  the  presence  of  the 
Ritschlian  theology,  and  it  has  not  an  ade¬ 
quate  word  to  say  to  him.  It  does  feel  the 
social  hunger,  however,  and  in  a  real  way 
expresses  it.  The  valuable  things  of  the 
Zeitgeist  are  expressed  here,  but  its  weak¬ 
nesses  also.  And  so  the  Ritschlian  theology, 
full  of  fresh  eagerness  and  fine  places  of 
reality  as  it  is.  as  a  total  is  thoroughly  inade- 

228 


THE  ATONEMENT 


quate.  The  theology  which  deals  adequately 
with  the  spirit  of  the  time  and  the  men  of 
the  time  must  not  speak  like  a  cringing 
courtier,  but  must  speak  with  the  voice  of 
a  king. 

II 

The  Situation  Regarding  the 
Atonement 

It  was  important  to  say  so  much  in  a 
general  way  because  all  the  things  we  have 
discussed  have  an  important  bearing  upon 
the  atonement  as  a  problem  for  our  time. 
It  is  in  this  world  that  present-day  thinking 
about  the  atonement  is  being  done.  When 
we  come  to  the  consideration  of  the  atone¬ 
ment  itself  the  first  thing  which  strikes  us 
is  the  movement  away  from  the  Satisfaction 
Theory.  Various  reasons  have  contributed 
to  this.  Probably  the  most  important  are 
these  four: 

1.  An  Ethical  Reason.  The  Satisfaction 
Theory  has  often  been  presented  in  ways 
which  made  it  repulsive  to  a  sound  ethical 
sense.  It  would  be  difficult  to  get  any  ade¬ 
quate  conception  of  the  amount  of  struggle 

229 


THE  QUEST  FOR  WONDER 


earnest  men  have  had  with  immoral  presen¬ 
tations  of  the  work  of  our  Lord.  A  revolt 
from  the  theory  in  whose  name  these  presen¬ 
tations  were  made  was  inevitable. 

2.  A  Reason  in  Reality.  The  Satisfac¬ 
tion  Theory  has  been  presented  as  such  an 
inanimate  mechanism  that  it  had  not  even 
a  throb  of  life.  As  men  have  listened  to 
solutions  in  which  only  cold  logic  and  com¬ 
mercial  exchange  were  involved  they  have 
been  repulsed.  A  theory  of  the  atonement 
needs  to  be  real. 

3.  A  Theological  Reason.  The  distaste 
for  theology  has  left  men  with  inadequate 
ideas  of  God  and  of  sin.  With  no  high 
doctrine  of  God,  through  which  the  fire  of 
moral  lightnings  flashed,  they  have  lost  the 
sense  that  there  was  an  obstacle  in  God 
which  must  be  met  before  sin  could  be  for¬ 
given.  With  conceptions  of  sin  which  have 
lost  the  penetrating  sense  of  its  heinous 
tragedy  the  problem  has  seemed  to  become 
far  less  grave,  and  the  solution  just  the 
revelation  of  the  Father’s  love. 

4.  A  Personal  Reason.  Men  are  proud 
creatures.  They  do  not  like  to  bend  too 

230 


THE  ATONEMENT 


much  even  to  God.  And  the  Satisfaction 
Theory  made  men  bend.  They  have  pre¬ 
ferred  some  theory  which  called  for  a  smaller 
price  from  men’s  pride — which  demanded  on 
the  part  of  men  less  humiliation.  Probably 
this  personal  reason  has  had  to  do  with  more 
turning  from  the  deeper  interpretation  of 
our  Lord’s  work  than  men  would  be  ready 
to  admit.  The  out-and-out  reaction  from 
the  Satisfaction  Theory  is,  of  course,  repre¬ 
sented  by  the  various  forms  of  the  Moral 
Influence  Theory.  There  is  much  that  is 
winsome  and  attractive  about  this  theory, 
and  there  is  much  that  is  true.  In  its  highest 
forms  it  is  quite  saturated  with  elevated 
Christian  feeling.  As  presented  by  Ritschl 
it  does  not  commend  itself  much,  but  when 
we  have  a  clear  sense  of  the  deity  of  our 
Lord,  and  his  passionate  desire,  even  at  the 
price  of  death,  to  win  men  from  sin,  it  be¬ 
comes  a  great  theory,  with  power  to  feed  us. 
Doubtless,  the  most  generally  attractive 
theory  of  our  Lord’s  work  is  some  form  of 
the  Moral  Influence  Theory.  In  Christ  we 
see  the  heart  of  God,  and,  seeing,  we  are 
won  to  him.  Multitudes  will  heartily  accept 

231 


THE  QUEST  FOR  WONDER 


this  statement  of  our  Lord’s  work.  But 
this  is  not  enough.  Even  the  highest  type 

of  the  Moral  Influence  Theory  assumes  that 

•/ 

all  there  is  to  be  done  is  to  get  a  bad  man 
made  into  a  good  one.  But  that  is  not  all. 
The  man  who  rests  in  the  Moral  Influence 
Theory  may  be  a  real  Christian,  but  he  has 
never  seen  what  God  actually  is.  And  he 
has  never  sounded  the  depth  of  his  own 
moral  life.  If  he  had,  he  would  know  that 
something  had  to  be  done  about  his  past  sin. 
The  great,  holy  God  must  be  satisfied,  and 
man’s  own  conscience  demands  something 
deeper  than  revelation,  forgiveness,  and  a 
new  life.  Then  the  New  Testament  is  an 
awkward  book  if  you  have  merely  the  Moral 
Influence  Theory.  It  calls  for  something 
deeper. 

Men  who  have  felt  that  they  could  not 
live  in  the  Satisfaction  Theory  and  were 
unable,  too,  to  rest  in  the  Moral  Influence 
Theory,  have  tried  to  find  an  abiding  place 
along  lines  first  marked  out  by  Grotius,  in 
the  Governmental  Theory.  The  thing  that 
is  deeper  than  the  Moral  Influence  Theory, 
they  have  said,  is  that  God  is  a  ruler.  He 

232 


THE  ATONEMENT 


must  protect  the  interests  of  moral  govern¬ 
ment.  Christ’s  death  served  the  very  end 
of  penalty  in  regard  to  moral  government. 
Therefore  the  sinner  may  be  forgiven.  The 
death  of  Christ  is  a  vindication  of  God’s 
moral  concern.  This  theory  too  witnesses  to 
a  truth.  Our  Lord’s  death  is  certainly  a 
vindication  of  God  as  a  God  of  moral  con¬ 
cern.  But  unless  it  is  more  than  that,  it  is 
a  question  if  it  can  be  as  much.  If  it  is 
only  an  awful  fact,  put  there  to  show  God’s 
hatred  of  sin,  the  question  is,  Does  it  really 
do  it? 

There  must  be  a  deeper  root  to  save  it 
from  being  erratic.  Then  it  does  not  pene¬ 
trate  into  the  depth  of  the  obstacle  in  God. 
This  is  far  deeper  than  the  needs  of  moral 
government.  Somehow  this  theory  has  not 
struck  vitally  with  men  in  our  time.  With 
the  inadequacies  we  have  already  mentioned 
another  may  help  to  account  for  this:  The 
Governmental  Theory  is  not  deeply  related 
to  the  New  Testament.  Besides  the  reac¬ 
tion  from  the  Satisfaction  Theory  there  has 
been  the  attempt  to  state  it  so  as  to  give  it 
an  actual  contact  with  the  lives  of  earnest 

233 


THE  QUEST  FOR  WONDER 


men.  In  this  connection,  of  course,  the  name 
of  Dale  comes  to  our  minds  at  once.  He 
made  it  clear  that  the  Satisfaction  Theory 
could  be  so  stated  as  to  be  exceedingly  real 
and  vital,  even  if  his  statement  was  not 
adequate.  Our  Lord’s  work  was  rich  and 
diverse  in  its  bearings,  and  men  have  seized 
upon  various  aspects  of  it  as  the  cardinal 
features  of  theories.  Their  works  have  been 
statements  of  various  true  things  about  our 
Lord  and  his  work,  but  have  not  had  the 
strength  of  a  final  theory.  To  the  degree 
that  they  have  a  deep  sense  of  sin  and  of 
God’s  righteousness  they  have  had  power  to 
feed  real  Christian  life.  Lacking  this,  they 
have  contributed  to  a  superficial  type  of 
Christian  experience. 

With  a  widespread  superficiality  in  the 
treatment  of  the  atonement  there  has  been 
a  hunger  for  something  deeper.  This  has 
been  voiced  in  a  volume  of  most  unusual 
noteworthiness — Professor  Denney’s  The 
Death  of  Christ.  The  book  comes  right  out 
of  the  modern  methods  of  scholarship,  and 
from  a  mind  fully  equipped  with  fine  instru¬ 
ments  of  thought  and  aware  of  all  the  moye- 

231 


THE  ATONEMENT 


ments  of  the  theological  world.  This  book 
makes  it  absolutely  clear  that  to  the  New 

•j 

Testament  consciousness  our  Lord’s  death 
was  a  substitution  for  us — that  the  atone¬ 
ment  is  an  achievement  which  he  wrought 
for  us,  and  that  all  the  other  great  things 
about  our  Lord’s  work  flow  from  this.  “He 
was  a  sin-bearer.”  This  message  not  only 
represents  New  Testament  consciousness, 
but  this  is  Christianity.  Professor  Denney 
does  not  have  a  philosophy  to  offer  for  this. 
He  does  not  seem  to  feel  the  need  of  it. 

He  lias  not  given  us  a  rationale  of  the 
atonement,  but  he  has  said  things  so  funda¬ 
mental,  and  with  such  fearless  freedom  from 
bending  to  the  call  of  the  spirit  of  the  time, 
that  a  new  hopefulness  has  been  given  to 
the  whole  theological  situation. 

All  this  is  the  background  of  a  book  which 
appeared  in  the  fall  of  1905 — The  Christian 
Faith,  by  Professor  Olin  A.  Curtis.  We 
want  to  see  how  this  work  is  related  to  this 
whole  theological  situation  and  the  signifi¬ 
cance  and  value  of  his  theory  of  the  atone¬ 
ment. 

(1)  Some  General  Remarks  about  Pro- 

235 


THE  QUEST  FOR  WONDER 


fessor  Curtis's  Theology.  The  first  thing 
Professor  Curtis  does  is  to  set  himself  free 
from  false  conceptions  of  law.  Law  is  not 
self-sustaining.  It  is  God  at  work.  Evolu¬ 
tion  is  not  a  self-sufficient  process.  Nothing 
happens  in  the  whole  movement  of  which 
God  is  not  the  final  causal  power.  This 
opening  chapter  having  lifted  the  flag  of 
defiance  to  the  Zeitgeist — when  the  Zeitgeist 
is  wrong — we  expect  a  treatment  of  the 
problems  of  theology  which  will  not  be 
simply  a  reflection  of  the  spirit  of  the  times, 
and  we  are  not  disappointed.  We  study 
man  to  see  what  is  in  him ;  what  the  demands 
of  his  inner  life  really  are.  So  we  come  to 
the  imperative  need  of  religion,  then  of  the 
Christian  religion,  if  this  man’s  life  is  to 
come  to  completion  and  peace.  Thus  we 
reach  Christianity  fathoms  below  the  plane 
where  criticism  works,  and  find  in  Chris¬ 
tianity  a  vital  and  adequate  authority.  The 
book  is  related  to  real  and  typical  Christian 
experience — the  New  Testament  type  of 
experience  too.  Every  reader  will  feel  this 
quality,  and  the  fact  that  one  man  was  con¬ 
verted  while  reading  the  book  seems  to  em- 

236 


THE  ATONEMENT 


phasize  this.  The  modem  demand  for  an 
ethical  treatment  of  Christianity  is  here 
fully  met.  There  is  not  an  ethical  subter¬ 
fuge  in  the  book.  It  is  unflinchingly  frank 
and  honest,  and  it  interprets  Christianity 
without  even  a  particle  of  Jesuitical  evasion. 
The  emphasis  on  psychology,  which  we 
found  to  be  a  part  of  modern  thought,  is 
strategically  used  to  show  that  from  the 
standpoint  of  psychology  we  can  prove  that 
men  need  many  things  from  which  the 
modern  mind  now  turns.  An  element  of 
peculiar  strength  is  this  penetrating  psycho¬ 
logical  analysis.  One  of  the  fine  things 
about  the  present  situation  we  found  to  be 
its  dawning  social  vision.  Now,  the  whole 
spirit  of  the  social  hunger  is  gathered  up 
and  poured  forth  in  this  book.  We  may 
say,  then,  that  it  has  the  most  thorough  con¬ 
tact  with  the  real  things  in  the  life  of  to-dav, 
while  it  is  not  afraid  to  repudiate  what  is 
felt  to  be  inadequate  or  false. 

(2)  The  Haclcil  Theory  of  Our  Lord's 
Redemptive  Work.  First  we  must  look 
upon  Professor  Curtis’s  approach  to  his 
theory  of  our  Lord’s  redemptive  work, 

237 


THE  QUEST  FOR  WONDER 


God’s  holiness  is  the  totality  of  all  that  he 
is.  It  is  the  law  of  the  organic  life  of  the 
Trinity.  It  is  infinite  moral  love.  The  very 
life  of  God  requires  that  this  law  of  holiness 
should  be  expressed.  In  a  normal  situation 
it  freely  comes  forth  in  full  and  harmonious 
expression.  In  an  abnormal  situation  caused 
by  sin  a  dualism  is  caused,  with  a  necessary 
emphasis  on  moral  concern  and  also  on  a 
desire  to  save  the  sinner.  In  an  utterly 
abnormal  situation,  when  the  sinner  has  ab¬ 
solutely  rejected  God,  the  law  of  holiness 
is  expressed  in  moral  concern  alone.  The 
basis  of  the  moral  law  is  the  law  of  holiness 
— the  organic  law  of  God’s  existence — lifted 
into  his  consciousness  and  personalized. 
Righteousness  has  its  source  in  the  nature  of 
God,  but  becomes  a  living  thing  by  his  per¬ 
sonally  filling  it  with  the  constant  power  of 
his  own  decision.  Moral  government  is  God 
dealing  with  creatures  according  to  this 
fundamental  law  of  his  own  being  person¬ 
alized.  The  end  of  the  moral  government 
is  that  the  universe,  through  and  through, 
may  express  and  manifest  what  God  is. 
Creation  was  a  preparation  for  this  goal. 

238 


THE  ATOXEMEXT 


History  is  the  movement  toward  it  in  spite 
of  sin.  Penalty  is  punishment  which  so  ex¬ 
presses  the  holiness  of  God  as  to  secure 
actual  movement  toward  the  final  goal  of 
moral  government.  The  Christian  view  re¬ 
gards  physical  death  in  the  human  race  as  an 
abnormal  event  caused  by  sin.  The  body 
is  the  basis  of  racial  contact  and  experience. 
God  wanted  the  race  forever  to  express 
moral  love:  in  sin  it  refuses;  in  death  he 
breaks  the  racial  connection  and  thrusts  men 
out  alone.  It  is  the  awful  accentuation  in 
punishment  of  the  very  selfishness  which 
refused  to  conform  to  the  plan  of  God. 
Coming  more  directly  to  the  work  of  our 
Lord,  Professor  Curtis  discusses  the  teach¬ 
ing  of  Saint  Paul  because  he  “furnishes  the 
more  important  data,  and  no  further  bibli¬ 
cal  study  would  essentially  change  the  out¬ 
come.”  We  may  summarize  the  result  of 
this  discussion.  In  his  bodily  death  our 
Saviour  bore  the  historic  penalty  for  sin, 
and  so  satisfied  the  holiness  of  God  by  fully 
expressing  it.  Thus  he  rendered  justifica¬ 
tion  ethically  possible,  on  the  condition  of 
faith.  By  his  resurrection  our  Lord  came 

239 


THE  QUEST  FOR  WONDER 


to  the  position  where  justification  was  prac¬ 
tically  possible,  he  forming  one  by  one  the 
new  community.  In  his  glorified  body  he 
is  the  type  to  which  the  saints  are  to  be  con¬ 
formed.  Thus  in  every  way  he  is  the  center 
of  the  new  race.  A  chapter  on  our  Lord’s 
strange  hesitation  in  approaching  death 
shows  that  the  deepest  tragedy  of  the  Pas¬ 
sion  was  that  expressed  in  the  words,  “Why 
hast  thou  forsaken  me?”  This  was  the  cup 
lie  dreaded  to  empty. 

Now,  we  are  ready  for  the  constructive 
work  of  the  theory.  The  purpose  of  God 
in  redemption  was  the  same  as  in  creation — 
“to  obtain  a  race  of  holy  persons.”  Now, 
however,  it  was  to  do  it  in  spite  of  sin.  The 
old  race  was  doomed  to  destruction  because 
of  sin,  and  was  in  process  of  dissolution. 
Jesus  Christ  came  to  be  the  dynamic  center 
of  the  new  race.  By  the  incarnation  he  be¬ 
came  the  race-man.  His  whole  experience 
had  this  end  in  view.  His  “exhaustive  human 
experience  perfects  his  racial  efficiency.” 
Before  he  can  secure  the  new  race  Jesus 
Christ  must  make  an  atonement  for  sin. 
This  is  not  a  relative  necessity,  it  is  an  abso- 

240 


THE  ATONEMENT 

lute  necessity.  It  springs  out  of  the  very 
nature  of  God.  The  holiness  of  God  must 
be  satisfied  by  a  full  and  perfect  expression 
of  it.  And  we  may  be  sure  the  awful  way 
chosen  was  the  only  way,  for  had  there  been 
a  method  of  less  terrible  and  tragic  cost,  God 
would  have  chosen  it.  In  the  bodily  death  of 
men  God’s  nature  had  been  partly  expressed. 
It  did  not  say,  “I  love  men.”  It  just  said, 
“I  hate  sin.”  In  establishing  a  new  race  the 
holiness  of  God  must  be  as  fully  expressed 
in  moral  concern  as  it  was  by  the  destruction 
of  the  old  race.  In  his  death  Christ  bore 
the  exact  penalty  for  sin.  Personally  he 
was  not  punished.  As  race-man  he  was 
punished.  “It  was  official  representative 
suffering.”  As  race-man  he  stood  right  in 
the  place  of  the  sinner  and  bore  the  penalty 
of  sin.  “He  was  broken  from  the  Adamic 
race,  like  any  other  sinner.”  But,  deeper 
than  this,  he  entered  into  the  very  spiritual 
meaning  of  sin’s  punishment:  he  lost  the 
consciousness  of  his  Father’s  presence.  “In 
the  beginning  of  the  isolation  of  his  death  as 
racial  mediator  (he)  met  the  whole  shock 
of  the  wrath  of  God  against  sin.”  “His 

241 


THE  QUEST  FOR  WONDER 


death  had  in  its  experience  the  extreme 
ethical  content  of  personal  isolation.”  “There 
alone  our  Lord  opens  his  mind,  his  heart, 
his  personal  consciousness  to  the  whole  in¬ 
flow  of  the  horror  of  sin — the  endless  history 
of  it;  from  the  first  choice  of  selfishness  on, 
on  to  the  eternity  of  hell ;  the  boundless  ocean 
of  its  isolation  and  desolation  he  allows,  wave 
on  wave,  to  overwhelm  his  soul.”  Thus  in 
his  physical  death,  and  his  spiritual  experi¬ 
ence  in  it,  our  Lord  bore  the  very  penalty 
of  sin.  In  doing  this  he  completely  ex¬ 
pressed  the  holiness  of  God.  “He  did  it  more 
perfectly  than  it  could  have  been  done  by  the 
annihilation  of  a  whole  race  of  sinners.” 
But  Calvary  is  a  creative  thing.  It  makes 
possible  movement  toward  the  very  goal  of 
God — the  salvation  of  the  race  as  a  race — 
and  this  potency  completes  its  power  to 
satisfy  completely  the  eternal  God.  Thus 
Calvary,  the  deed  of  the  race-man  bearing 
the  penalty  of  sin,  and  so  expressing  God’s 
hatred  of  sin  as  to  render  the  foundation  and 
gradual  formation  of  the  new  race  possible, 
is  the  atonement.  When  our  Saviour  rose 
again  the  “racial  center  of  organism  became 

242 


THE  ATONEMENT 


a  finished  fact.”  His  ascension  and  session 
are  features  in  the  historic  realization  of  his 
mediatorial  work  in  connection  with  the  new 
race.  Thus  there  is  a  great  series  of  re¬ 
demptive  deeds — the  Incarnation,  which 
secures  the  race-man;  the  Death  of  Christ, 
in  which  the  atonement  is  consummated ;  the 
Resurrection,  by  which  our  Lord  founds  the 
new  race ;  the  Ascension,  when  he  is  inducted 
into  the  office  of  mediator;  and  the  Session, 
in  which  his  mediatorial  work  is  carried  on. 
With  all  this,  however,  God  can  forgive  the 
sinner  only  on  condition  of  the  most  unflinch- 
ing  ethical  procedure  on  his  part.  There  is 
no  moral  let-up.  Rut  this  sinner  is  not  saved 
by  the  moral  quality  of  his  accepting  Christ. 
This  is  merely  a  condition.  The  salvation  is 
a  thing  wrought  by  Jesus,  not  a  thing 
achieved  by  the  sinner.  A  drowning  sailor 
must  hold  to  the  rope  let  down  to  save  him, 
but  he  does  not  save  himself.  The  Christian 
peace  is  secured  in  the  fact  that  his  whole 
growth  is  growth  in  Christ.  Every  man  in 
the  new  race  finds  completion  in  the  brother¬ 
hood  and  in  Christ.  The  brotherhood  is  to 
be  a  great  organism  of  service  alive  with 

243 


THE  QUEST  FOR  WONDER 


moral  love  and  joy.  This  brotherhood — 
rendered  possible  by  the  death  of  Christ — 
will  at  last  victoriously  realize  God’s  original 
design  in  creation.  And  with  all  this  the 
holy  God  is  satisfied. 

Some  things  about  this  theory  will  strike 
us  at  once : 

1.  It  grows  out  of  genuine  Christian  ex¬ 
perience,  and  expresses  it.  It  catches  the 
very  feelings  of  the  Christian  who  has  found 
peace  with  God  through  Jesus  Christ.  Its 
emphasis  on  the  awfulness  of  sin  could 
scarcely  be  profounder,  and  it  has  the  feeling 
about  sin  of  a  man  who  rejoices  in  the  great¬ 
ness  of  the  Christian  salvation. 

2.  It  is  rooted  in  vitality.  Its  psychology 
is  so  keen,  yet  so  sensitive  to  spiritual  mean¬ 
ings,  its  solution  of  the  problem  so  deeply 
related  to  the  very  demands  of  earnest  life, 
that  there  is  a  practical  seizure. 

3.  It  not  only  expresses  the  social  hunger 
of  our  time,  it  ennobles  it.  The  great  things 
of  men’s  hunger  for  brotherhood  are  ac¬ 
cepted  and  transfigured  in  the  glow  of  a 
heavenly  light. 

4.  Here,  where  there  has  been  so  much 

244 


THE  ATONEMENT 


ethical  makeshift  we  find  none.  It  is  all 
honest  and  candid. 

5.  The  substitution  of  God’s  holiness,  as 
the  tiling  to  be  satisfied,  for  the  one  quality 
of  justice,  takes  away  from  this  theory  the 
greatest  difficulties  which  beset  the  Satisfac¬ 
tion  Theory. 

*/ 

6.  The  whole  content  of  theology  is 
focused  on  the  work  of  our  Lord.  Its 
deepest  place  relates  to  what  God  is.  Its 
power  would  be  lost  if  Christ  were  not  God, 
if  there  were  not  a  real  Trinity  of  real  per¬ 
sons,  if  our  Lord  had  not  lived  a  sinless  life. 
The  resurrection  is  lifted  into  redemptional 
significance.  The  theological  truths  appear 
not  as  fragments,  but  as  part  of  a  great 
organism.  It  is  saying  much  of  a  theory  of 
the  atonement  that  it  relates  itself  to  the 
other  truths  of  theology  in  this  organic  way. 

7.  The  theory  speaks  in  the  language  of 
our  time.  It  has  listened  to  the  time-spirit, 
but  it  does  not  surrender  Christianity:  it 
interprets  it. 

Still,  under  the  glow  of  this  piece  of  con¬ 
structive  work,  it  would  be  unwise  to  at¬ 
tempt  to  utter  a  final  criticism.  Time  will 

245 


THE  QUEST  FOR  WONDER 


answer  questions  as  to  its  ultimate  place 
among  offered  solutions  of  the  problem  and 
the  question  its  vitality  makes  inevitable: 
“May  not  we  here  have  found  a  method 
which  strikes  the  kevnote  of  the  final 
theory?”  Of  this,  at  least,  we  may  be  sure: 
the  very  life  blood  of  the  great  old  theories 
throbs  here,  and  the  joining  is  not  mechan¬ 
ical.  The  new  features  and  the  method  of 
articulation  give  us  a  view  which  is  organic. 


246 


THE  THEOLOGY  OF  ALBRECHT 

RITSCHL 


CHAPTER  IX 

THE  THEOLOGY  OF  ALBRECHT  RITSCIIL 

To  a  man  who  is  interested  in  the  thought- 
movements  of  our  time  and  the  relation  of 
Christianity  to  them,  the  study  of  the 
theology  of  Ritschl  is  sure  to  be  of  interest. 
He  will  feel  that  he  is  studying  something 
which  is  alive.  It  is  not  a  worn-out  system  in 
whose  channels  men’s  minds  move  with  diffi¬ 
culty  and  to  whose  deeper  meanings  their 
hearts  do  not  respond,  but  a  system  grow¬ 
ing  out  of  the  very  heart  of  our  modern 
thought  life,  and  one  whose  attractiveness 
and  vitality  have  been  felt  by  multitudes. 

In  this  study  the  plan  will  be,  first,  to  get 
a  glimpse  of  the  man  and  the  movement  in 
quite  external  features;  then  to  endeavor  to 
see  the  outstanding  features  of  the  thought 
world  in  which  the  system  was  born.  Fol¬ 
lowing  this,  we  shall  try  to  see  what  RitschFs 
standpoint  was,  and  then  make  a  brief  state¬ 
ment  of  his  system  as  we  understand  it. 
Coming  to  the  atonement,  we  shall  try  to 

249 


THE  QUEST  FOR  WONDER 


see  Ritschl’s  view  in  relation  to  his  general 
principles  and  its  place  in  relation  to  the 
great  historic  theories,  with  some  apprecia¬ 
tion  and  criticism  of  his  view.  Then,  in 
conclusion,  we  shall  have  something  to  say 
of  the  service  of  Ritschlianism,  and  in 
criticism  of  its  inadequacies. 

First,  then,  the  man  and  the  movement. 
Albrecht  Ritschl  was  born  in  Berlin  in  1822. 
His  father  was  a  bishop  and  general  super¬ 
intendent  of  the  Evangelical  Church  in 
Pomerania.  In  1827  Ritschl’s  father  moved 
to  Stellen,  which  thus  became  the  home  of 
his  childhood.  When  the  time  came  for 
Ritschl  to  enter  university,  Bonn  was  chosen, 
as  we  are  told,  on  account  of  Nitzsch.  It 
is  an  interesting  fact  that  Nitzsch  was  a 
theologian  who  believed  in  the  agreement  of 
the  evangelical  theology  and  science  and 
sought  to  show  this  agreement.  Thus 
Ritschl’s  first  theological  environment  in  a 
university  was  that  from  which  his  whole 
system,  as  we  shall  see,  was  a  revolt.  It  is 
also  worth  noting  that  Bonn  has  a  double 
faculty — -Catholic  and  Protestant.  Ritschl 
went  to  Bonn  in  1839,  and  in  1841  we  find 

250 


ALBRECHT  RITSCHL 


him  at  ITalle.  Here  he  was  under  Tholuck 
and  Julius  Muller.  But  the  Hegelian  phi¬ 
losophy  was  represented  by  such  men  as 
Professor  Erdmann,  and  now  Ritschl  came 
under  the  influence  of  Hegelianism,  and 
after  a  time  we  see  him  in  the  position 
of  a  Hegelian  himself.  The  great  Hegelian 
theologian,  Baur,  was  in  Tubingen,  and  to 
Tubingen  Ritschl  went.  But  Ritschl  could 
not  content  himself  in  the  Hegelian  ranks, 
and  by  18.56  we  And  that  he  lias  completely 
broken  with  them.  The  influence  of  this 
Hegelian  period  remained  with  Ritschl, 
however,  and  traces  of  it  may  be  seen  as  in 

his  desire  for  a  “whole”  view  of  Christianity. 

*/ 

Through  his  own  study  Ritschl  came  under 
the  influence  of  Kant,  and  later  became 
personally  acquainted  with  Lotze,  whose 
views  influenced  his  own.  Likewise  in  study 
Ritschl  came  up  against  Schleiermacher, 
who  influenced  him  profoundly. 

Ritschl  was  a  teacher  in  Bonn  for  eighteen 

years.  We  are  told  that  “he  began  his  first 

semester  with  eight  hearers  in  each  of  his 

two  courses,  lint  the  next  semester  he  got 

only  three  in  one  and  two  in  the  other.  Three 
* 

251 


THE  QUEST  FOR  WONDER 


years  later  he  passed  the  whole  winter 
semester  without  lecturing  at  all,  since  no 
one  had  taken  the  courses  offered.”  Rut  in 
his  last  years  at  Bonn  he  was  exceedingly 
popular.  It  will  interest  us  to  notice  the 
fields  he  covered  in  his  teaching.  He  first 
took  the  New  Testament,  then  he  took  up 
church  history,  then  history  of  doctrine,  and 
after  he  had  been  at  Bonn  seven  years  began 
lecturing  on  dogmatics.  After  twelve  years 
he  took  up  the  subject  of  theological  ethics, 
and  after  sixteen  years  the  subject  of  the 
biblical  theology  of  the  New  Testament. 
We  see  that  it  was  a  wide  field  which  Ritschl 
himself  covered.  His  last  years  were  spent 
as  professor  at  the  University  of  Gottingen, 
and  this  period  was  a  time  of  great  popu¬ 
larity.  His  earlier  work  on  The  Old  Catholic 
Church  is  interesting  in  its  relation  to  his 
rupture  with  the  Tubingen  school.  His 
great  work  was  his  Justification  and  Recon¬ 
ciliation.  The  three  volumes  consist  of 
(1)  A  History  of  Doctrine,  (2)  A  Biblical 
Theology,  and  (3)  the  positive  statement 
of  his  own  system.  The  first  volume  was 
published  in  1870,  the  second  and  third  in 


ALBRECHT  RITSCHL 


1874.  His  last  work  was  a  History  of 
Pietism  which  engaged  him  ten  or  eleven 
years.  Ritschl  died  in  his  study  March  20, 
1889,  aged  sixty-seven  years. 

It  has  been  declared  that  Ritschl  touched 
almost  every  phase  of  theological  thought 
in  Germany,  and  what  has  already  been  said 
of  his  preparation  almost  answers  our  second 
question,  What  was  the  thought-world  in 
which  his  system  was  born?  This  may  be 
answered  briefly  by  saying,  On  the  philo¬ 
sophic  side,  the  world  of  Kant  and  Hegel; 
on  the  theological  side  of  the  world  of 
Schleiermacher;  and  over  against  positive 
Christianity  the  world  of  Strauss;  the  world 
in  which  Kant’s  critique  of  the  possibilities  of 
speculative  thought  and  his  exaltation  of  the 
practical  reason  had  been  heard;  the  world 
in  which  Hegel’s  philosophy  of  the  “abso¬ 
lute”  had  been  received  with  open  arms; 
the  world  in  which  the  rationalism  of  Sender 
and  Strauss  had  been  felt;  and  the  positive 
impetus  of  Schleiermacher,  with  his  insist¬ 
ence  upon  the  value  of  the  subjective  and 
man’s  direct  communication  with  God.  This 
was  the  world  in  which  Ritschlianism  was 

253 


THE  QUEST  FOR  WONDER 


bom.  And  the  aim  of  Ritschlianism  is  to 
give  a  more  adequate  view  of  Christianity 
than  had  been  given  elsewhere. 

Now  we  must  try  to  see  what  was 
RitschFs  standpoint  in  his  work.  On  the 
religious  side  his  position  was  anti-mystical. 
He  did  not  believe  in  direct  communication 
between  the  soul  and  God.  Dr.  Garvie,  in 
his  interpretation  of  Ritschl,  tries  to  qualify 
this  statement,  but  at  best  it  cannot  be  made 
out  that  Ritschl  held  to  a  positive  notion  of 
direct  communication  between  the  soul  and 
God.  When  Ritschl  read  Schleiermacher  we 
are  told  that  he  was  both  repelled  and  at¬ 
tracted,  and  we  may  readily  conclude  that 
the  thing  that  repelled  him  was  Schleier- 
macher’s  mysticism,  while  his  subjectivity 
attracted  him. 

Then,  following  Kant,  Ritschl  came  to 
the  conclusion  that  along  the  lines  of  theo¬ 
retic  thought  you  cannot  do  much  for  reli¬ 
gion,  while  Kant’s  “Practical  Reason”  sug¬ 
gested  a  way  to  do  something  for  religion. 
Ritschl  made  the  distinction  a  sharp  one. 
To  him  there  were  two  worlds:  the  world  of 
theoretic  thought  and  the  world  of  religious 

254 


ALBRECHT  RITSCHL 


truth,  and  these  two  do  not  touch.  Ritschl 
would  never  have  us  attempt  to  harmonize 
Christianity  with  a  theory  of  things.  Reli¬ 
gious  knowledge  and  scientific  knowledge 
are  distinct  and  their  spheres  are  distinct. 

Religious  knowledge  is  based  upon  what 
Ritschl  called  independent  value  judgments, 
or  judgments  of  worth.  In  other  words,  the 
basis  of  accepting  Christianity  is  its  worth  in 
satisfying  our  religious  needs,  and  we  are  to 
be  quite  content  with  this  and  not  to  seek  for 
it  an  objective  validity  by  moving  along  the 
lines  of  ordinary  theoretic  thought.  Ritschl 
discards  speculative  theism.  He  condemns 
ecclesiastical  dogma  for  having  mixed  itself 
with  metaphysical  notions,  for  he  believed 
that  Christianity  had  suffered  from  being 
mixed  with  philosophy,  that  very  early  it 
began  to  accommodate  itself  to  Greek 
thought — in  Harnack  all  this  is  expressed 
clearly — and  that  it  has  suffered  from  its 
connections  all  through  the  centuries.  To 
get  back  to  Christianity  before  this  un¬ 
fortunate  alliance  is  Ritschl’s  endeavor. 

But  Ritschl’s  rejection  of  metaphysics  is 
by  no  means  such  a  wholesale  thing  as  at 

255 


THE  QUEST  FOR  WONDER 


first  sight  it  may  seem.  For  he  must  pro¬ 
ceed  according  to  a  theory  of  knowledge, 
and  he  must  recognize  the  validity  of  logical 
procedure.  Ritschl  himself  was  perfectly 
conscious  that  he  could  not  lock  metaphysics 
out  of  the  door,  and  he  is  quoted  as  saying 
that,  after  all,  it  is  not  a  question  of  having 
metaphysics,  hut  what  metaphysics  you  have. 
And  it  is  important  to  recognize  that  it  was 
on  the  basis  of  a  particular  philosophic  view 
that  Ritschl  made  the  distinction  between 
religious  and  philosophic  knowledge.  And 
perhaps  he  was  far  more  influenced  by  his 
own  philosophical  presuppositions  than  he 
himself  recognized. 

Now  we  come  to  Professor  Ritschl’s  svs- 
tern  of  doctrine.  And  probably  it  would  not 
be  putting  it  too  strongly  to  say  that  he  was 
by  nature  a  systematic  theologian. 

First,  it  is  worthy  of  note  that  in  Ritschl* s 
view  the  systematic  theologian  must  do  his 
work  from  within  the  Christian  community. 
And  his  conception  of  the  systematic  theolo¬ 
gian  is  that  he  is  to  give  an  articulated  view 
of  the  whole  of  the  Christian  faith. 

Beginning  the  survey  of  his  system  then, 

256 


ALBRECHT  RITSCHL 


we  come  to  his  conception  of  God.  Accord¬ 
ing  to  Ritschl,  the  Christian  conception  of 
God  is  that  “given  in  the  revelation  received 
through  Christ”  and  this  conception  is  that 
of  a  loving  will.  All  that  we  know  of  God 
we  can  sum  up  in  the  word  “love.”  By  a 
metaphysical  excursion  Ritschl  argues  for 
the  personality  of  God.  He  conceives  of 
God’s  love  as  his  steadfast  holding  to  his 
purpose  of  a  kingdom  among  men.  In  his 
notion  of  God  we  miss  a  great  insistence  on 
God’s  righteousness,  and  when  we  come  to 
God’s  relations  to  men  his  personality  seems 
in  time  somehow  chained  and  lifeless. 

The  World .  Again  taking  a  plunge  into 
the  forbidden  realm  of  metaphysics,  Ritschl 
deduces  the  world  from  the  love  of  God. 
He  conceives  of  it  as  being  called  into  ex¬ 
istence  and  governed  to  secure  the  end  of 
God,  which  is  the  establishment  of  a  king¬ 
dom  among  men.  This  is  the  end  of  his 
love.  Men  exist  in  the  world  as  a  means 
to  the  kingdom. 

Sin.  But  such  a  kingdom  as  God  wants 
in  the  world  does  not  exist,  and,  summing 
up  all  that  is  contradictory  to  the  kingdom 

257 


THE  QUEST  FOR  WONDER 


of  God,  we  may  call  it  the  kingdom  of  sin. 
Ritschl  puts  no  emphasis  on  the  fall,  and 
rejects  the  idea  of  original  sin.  In  relation 
to  the  individual  he  conceives  of  two  kinds 
of  sin :  the  final  direction  of  the  will  in  oppo¬ 
sition  to  God,  which  he  thinks  cannot  be 
forgiven,  and  all  other  sin,  which  he  classes 
as  ignorance,  and  which  can  be  forgiven. 
Sin  is  the  opposite  of  the  kingdom  of  God, 
and  opposition  to  God’s  will.  The  concep¬ 
tions  of  sin  as  a  violation  of  the  moral  law 
and  of  one’s  own  standards  of  righteousness 
are  not  emphasized. 

Guilt .  Men  have  a  consciousness  of  guilt 
which  leads  them  to  distrust  God.  Those 
things  in  life  have  the  significance  of 
punishments  which  the  consciousness  of 
guilt  leads  men  to  impute  to  themselves  as 
punishments.  This  consciousness  of  guilt 
as  distrust  and  guilt  itself  shut  men  out  from 
fellowship  with  God,  and  it  is  evident  that 
whatever  shuts  men  out  from  fellowship 
with  God  needs  to  be  removed. 

Religion.  Ritschl  has  a  peculiar  view  of 
religion.  Men  find  themselves  in  the  world 
with  a  feeling  that  they  are  of  greater  value 

258 


ALBRECHT  RITSCHL 


than  the  world,  yet  feeling  that  they  are  a 
part  of  it.  And  in  men  there  is  a  desire  to 
master  the  world.  This  leads  to  religion. 
Religion  is  the  expression  of  men’s  need  of 
world  mastery.  Christianity  secures  to  men 
this  mastery,  this  lordship  oyer  the  world. 

Christ.  Coming  now  to  Christianity,  we 
find  that  it  centers  in  the  historic  person  of 
Christ.  Ritschl  puts  aside  all  such  ques¬ 
tions  as  the  incarnation — the  two  natures, 
human  and  divine — as  metaphysical.  He  has 
no  doctrine  of  the  Trinity,  and  despite  Dr. 
Garvie’s  argument  I  am  not  sure  that  it 
would  be  doing  Ritschl  an  injustice  to  say 
that  in  his  notion  Christ’s  preexistence  was 
ideal.  And  it  is  difficult  to  make  out  from 
Ritschl  how  the  Saviour’s  postexistence  has 
any  direct  relation  to  the  community 
founded  by  him.  To  Ritschl  the  divinity  of 
Christ  consists  in  the  worth  of  Christ  to 
men;  as  some  one  has  put  it,  “God  could 
not  do  for  us  more  than  Christ  has  done.” 
So  he  has  the  value  of  God  for  us. 

When  we  look  at  Christ  the  first  thing 
that  impresses  us  is  his  spiritual  lordship 
over  the  world.  In  his  patience  in  suffering 

259 


THE  QUEST  FOR  WONDER 


and  his  trueness  to  his  vocation  (the  found¬ 
ing  of  the  kingdom  of  God)  even  unto 
death,  there  is  a  kingliness.  In  the  loving 
motive  he  had,  and  the  continual  estimate 
of  himself  as  Lord  over  the  world,  in  con- 
formitv  of  this  to  the  will  of  God,  he  is 
God’s  revealer,  and  is  equal  to  God.  Jesus 
Christ  made  God’s  end  his  end.  To  the 
man  who  comes  to  him  with  a  sense  of  guilt, 
and  a  distrust  of  God  on  account  of  this, 
Jesus  reveals  God’s  love  and  thus  takes  awav 
the  distrust. 

Justification.  This  removing  of  the  ob¬ 
stacle  to  fellowship  with  God  is  justification. 
Jesus  Christ  by  his  own  Lordship  over 
the  world  through  making  God’s  end  his 
end,  shows  man  the  way  to  lordship  over  the 
world.  Thus  his  religious  need  is  met.  Our 
Lord  is  able  to  lead  men  to  this  freedom 
because  he  had  it  first.  He  had  the  relation 
of  fellowship  with  God  and  leads  men  into  it. 
The  experience  which  he  possessed  he  shares 
with  men.  In  this  sense  he  is  their  Priest. 

The  Community.  But  God  is  not  after 
saved  men  but  a  community.  In  fact,  ac- 
cording  to  Ritschl,  it  is  only  by  means  of 

260 


ALBRECHT  RITSCHL 


the  community  that  the  man  becomes  par¬ 
taker  in  justification.  The  community 
rather  than  the  individual  is  the  subject  of 
justification.  A  man  enters  the  community 
by  trusting  God  and  accepting  God’s  end 
as  his  end. 

The  Church .  The  community  regarded 
as  worshiping  is  the  church;  as  bound  to¬ 
gether  and  acting  on  the  basis  of  unselfish 
love,  it  is  the  kingdom  of  God.  Of  this 
kingdom  Christ  is  the  founder,  and  to  it  he 
stands  as  God.  We  get  back  to  Christ 
through  his  self -testimony  and  the  testimony 
of  the  disciples  about  him.  But  to  Ritschl 
there  was  no  such  authority  to  the  point  of 
view  of  authors  in  the  Xew  Testament  as 
would  keep  him  from  disagreeing  with  them 
if  he  chose.  The  community  of  Christians 
enjoy  religious  freedom  from  the  world. 
By  the  exercise  of  patience,  humility,  and 
prayer — prayer  being  principally  thanks¬ 
giving  and  the  expression  of  patience  and 
humility — the  members  of  the  community 
exercise  lordship  over  the  world.  They  feel 
that  no  obstacle  the  world  can  offer  can 


divert  them  from  their  end — the  kingdom 

261 


THE  QUEST  FOR  WONDER 


of  God — and  so  exercise  lordship  over  the 
world.  Along  this  way  the  Christian  finds 
his  perfection — a  perfection  in  relation  to 
his  vocation,  not  an  absolute  one — in  reli¬ 
gious  freedom  and  moral  activity,  in  his 
motives  perfected.  Moral  activity  in  the 
kingdom  of  God  comes  as  a  sort  of  con¬ 
comitant  of  religious  freedom.  Professor 
Ritschl  never  succeeded  in  showing  in  a  very 
satisfactory  way  the  relation  between  reli¬ 
gious  freedom  and  moral  activity. 

Assurance .  Personal  assurance,  of  course, 
does  not  come  according  to  Ritschl  as  a 
direct  communication  from  God.  His  anti- 
mystical  tendencies  prevented  his  holding 
such  a  position  as  that.  Assurance,  he 
thinks,  comes  in  one’s  exercise  of  patience, 
humility,  and  prayer,  as  the  functions  of 
religious  freedom. 

The  Holy  Spirit .  Ritschl’s  notion  of  the 
Holy  Spirit  is  that  the  Spirit  is  God’s 
knowledge  of  his  own  end.  As  said  before, 
Ritschl  has  no  answer  to  questions  about  the 
Trinity.  These  are  metaphysical.  He  gives 
one  eschatological  hint — the  annihilation  of 
the  finally  perverse. 


262 


ALBRECHT  RITSCHL 


The  Atonement.  In  the  outline  of 
RitschFs  system  we  have  stated  the  essence 
of  his  view  of  the  work  of  our  Lord,  which, 
as  we  have  seen,  occupies  a  very  important 
place.  Now  we  want  to  view  it  more  defi¬ 
nitely.  Jesus  Christ  has  a  peculiar  relation 
to  the  Christian  community  as  founder  of 
the  kingdom  of  God.  Here  we  find  his 
kingly  office.  Jesus  Christ  has  a  peculiar 
relation  to  the  Christian  community  as 
revealer  of  God:  showing  men  the  love  of 
God,  so  that  their  distrust  of  God  is  taken 
away,  and  showing  them  God’s  end  in  the 
world,  his  kingdom,  which  they  are  to  make 
their  end  also.  This  is  his  prophetic  office, 
Jesus  Christ  maintained  his  own  fellowship 
with  God,  which  is  the  basis  of  the  relation 
into  which  he  is  to  introduce  believers.  All 
through  his  life,  even  unto  death,  he  had  to 
maintain  this  relation  himself  in  order  to 
introduce  believers  into  it.  This  is  his 
priestly  office. 

On  man’s  part  the  necessity  is  that  he 
make  God’s  end  in  the  world  his  end.  This 
is  reconciliation.  Man  now  enters  upon  a 
new  relation  of  trust  in  God  and  comes  to 

263 


THE  QUEST  FOR  WONDER 


the  blessedness  of  lordship  over  the  world, 
and  being  one  with  the  community  bound 
together  by  love.  Lordship  over  the  world 
Ritschl  calls  eternal  life.  The  significance 
of  the  death  of  Christ  to  Ritschl  is  that  it 
represents  the  final  proof  of  our  Lord’s 
loyalty  to  his  vocation,  that  is,  the  founding 
of  the  kingdom  of  God. 

All  that  man  gains  through  Christianity 
is  directly  related  to  the  personal  work  of  the 
Saviour.  His  distrust  in  God  is  removed 
by  the  revelation  he  gets  in  Jesus  Christ. 
The  life  of  lordship  over  and  freedom  from 
the  world  he  first  sees  in  Jesus  Christ,  who 
shows  him  the  way  to  it.  His  patience,  his 
humility,  his  prayer,  his  trust  in  God  all 
come  from  him.  The  new  relation  to  God, 
the  new  relation  to  the  world,  the  member¬ 
ship  in  the  kingdom  of  God  all  come  through 
Jesus  Christ. 

From  the  evangelical  standpoint  one  is 
almost  tempted  to  say  that  Ritschl  has  no 
theory  of  the  atonement,  for  to  him  sin 
makes  no  such  obstacle  between  man  and 
God  as  makes  an  atonement  in  this  sense 
necessary.  But  in  the  sense  that  the  life 

264 


ALBRECHT  RITSCHL 


and  work  of  our  Lord  are  the  basis  of  men’s 
being  admitted  to  the  Christian  community, 
and  enjoying  its  privileges,  we  may  call  his 
a  theory  of  the  atonement. 

Xow,  what  are  its  connections  with  the 
historic  theories?  With  the  Governmental 
none.  Ritschl  thinks  of  God  never  as  a 
ruler,  but  as  a  Father.  The  theory  is  not  a 
Satisfaction  Theory.  With  Ritschl’ s  general 
view  there  would  be  no  place  for  the  pecul¬ 
iarities  of  the  Satisfaction  Theory.  The 
Saviour  bears  no  penalty  for  us  in  Ritschl’ s 
mind.  In  one  point,  however,  there  is  a 
connection  with  the  Satisfaction  Theory. 
Ritschl  tries  to  utilize  the  idea  of  Christ’s 
being  our  representative,  and  brings  out  the 
thought  of  God’s  imputing  to  the  commu¬ 
nity  the  position  Christ  has  in  it.  But  I  can¬ 
not  see  that  this  idea  is  connected  in  any 
very  organic  way  with  his  view  as  a  whole. 
We  must  classify  his  theory  as  a  form  of 
the  Moral  Influence  Theory.  The  great 
thing  about  the  work  of  our  Lord  is  that  it 
reveals  God.  When  man  sees  what  God  is 
like  his  distrust  is  taken  away. 

Xow,  this  emphasis  upon  Christ  as  the 

265 


THE  QUEST  FOR  WONDER 


revealer  of  God  is  a  valuable  thing  and 
worthy  of  our  appreciation.  The  emphasis 
upon  the  person  of  Christ  and  the  spirit  of 
his  life  is  a  valuable  thing.  But  when  we 
look  frankly  at  the  theory  we  see  that  it  is 
not  even  the  greatest  kind  of  a  Moral  Influ¬ 
ence  Theory.  One  never  feels  the  awful 
movement  of  sacrifice  in  the  Eternal  God 
which  is  a  part  of  a  Moral  Influence  Theory 
which  has  a  positive  relation  to  the  deity  of 
our  Lord.  One  misses  the  emphasis  upon 
the  power  of  our  Lord’s  work  to  win  men 
from  sin  which  is  a  part  of  a  Moral  Influence 
Theory  which  is  related  to  a  profound  con¬ 
ception  of  sin. 

Criticizing  the  theory  in  larger  relations: 
There  is  not  the  biblical  emphasis  upon  the 
death  of  our  Lord.  There  is  no  conception 
of  sin  as  making  an  obstacle  in  God,  no 
emphasis  corresponding  to  the  biblical  notion 
of  God’s  relation  to  sin,  or  to  a  man’s  own 
sense  of  sin  when  his  conscience  is  fully 
awake.  There  is  no  adequate  account  taken 
of  the  fact  that  God  must  uphold  all  moral 
concern.  His  theory,  then,  we  must  char¬ 
acterize  as  thoroughly  inadequate,  measured 

266 


ALBRECHT  RITSCHL 


by  the  Bible  and  by  the  deepest  feelings  of 
a  man’s  own  heart. 

Now,  viewing  the  system  as  a  whole,  can 

we  say  that  it  has  rendered  service  to 

«/ 

theological  thought  ?  In  reply,  we  must 
recognize  that,  in  the  first  place,  its  emphasis 
upon  value  judgments  has  been  of  service. 
We  need  to  see  clearly  that  the  great  apolo¬ 
getic  of  Christianity  is  the  very  fact  upon 
which  Ritschl  insisted — that  it  satisfies 
man’s  religious  needs,  and  a  man’s  deepest 
reason  for  accepting  it  is  that  it  has  the 
worth  of  a  satisfying  thing  to  him.  But 
when  Ritschl  refuses  to  allow  that  a  thing 
necessary  for  our  religious  satisfaction  shall 
clearly  have  objective  validity,  we  must  part 
with  him.  When  he  sees  no  connection  be¬ 
tween  religious  truth  and  scientific  truth,  we 
must  part  with  him.  It  has  well  been  said 
that  a  religious  truth  without  objective 
reality  is  not  a  real  truth,  and  religion  itself 
is  reduced  to  subjectivity  if  we  are  not 
allowed  to  relate  it  to  truth  in  other  realms. 
What  is  true  in  one  realm  cannot  be  false 
in  another.  Christianity  satisfies  the  man, 
therefore  he  accepts  it.  And  because  it 

267 


THE  QUEST  FOR  WONDER 


satisfies  him  in  the  needs  of  his  personal  life 
he  is  not  afraid  to  see  it  related  to  all  life. 
He  knows  that  it  must  stand. 

From  the  Ritschlian  movement  perhaps 
there  will  come  a  sense  of  the  truths  of  the 
faith  quite  apart  from  their  philosophical 
setting,  and  that  it  is  these  truths  which  are 
vital  and  not  the  particular  philosophical 
system  with  which  we  try  to  relate  them. 
This  will  be  a  good  thing.  But  it  must  never 
be  taken  to  mean  a  divorce  between  religion 
and  every  philosophical  view  of  the  world. 
Another  service  of  the  Ritschlian  movement 
has  been  the  emphasis  it  has  placed  upon 
the  historic  Christ.  This  cannot  help  having 
a  freshening  influence  upon  the  religious  life 
of  all  who  feel  it.  Then  the  lifting  up  of  the 
idea  of  the  kingdom  of  God — the  community 
bound  together  by  love — is  a  service  we 
ought  to  recognize.  It  should  be  made  and 
kept  a  great  thought  in  the  mind  of  the 
Church. 

When  we  come  to  speak  in  conclusion  of 
the  inadequacies  of  the  system,  we  find  that 
they  are  many.  In  the  first  place,  as  Pro¬ 
fessor  Orr  points  out,  while  ruling  out  a 

268 


ALBRECHT  RITSCHL 


theory  of  things  from  being  related  to  his 
system,  he  allows  his  own  philosophical 
theory  to  do  strange  and  wonderful  things. 
Taking  it  as  a  basis,  he  rules  out  the  con¬ 
sideration  of  the  Trinity,  leaves  his  system, 
to  say  the  least,  without  a  clear  notion  of  the 
preexistence  of  Christ — or  the  proper  place 
being  given  to  miracles — and  takes  away 
from  Christianity  things  which  have  been 
considered  essential,  and  which  we  believe 
are  essential,  not  with  the  excuse  that  in 
“going  back  to  Christ”  and  the  primitive 
records  he  finds  full  warrant  for  it,  but  be¬ 
cause  his  philosophical  theory  demands  it. 
Xo  wonder  if  such  procedure  suggests  the 
thought  that  if  you  shut  metaphysics  out 
of  the  front  door  it  will  come  in  at  the  back 
door.  And,  more  than  this,  Ritschl  is  not 
prevented  from  dealing  with  such  subjects 
as  the  j^ersonality  of  God,  for  all  his  dislike 
of  metaphysics.  Philosophically,  he  has 
done  two  things  which  seem  to  me  unjusti¬ 
fiable  in  a  Christian  theologian:  he  has 
attempted  to  divorce  the  realm  of  religious 
truth  from  that  of  scientific  truth,  and  he 
has  allowed  philosophical  positions  which 

269 


THE  QUEST  FOR  WONDER 


have  commended  themselves  to  him  to  lead 
him  to  discard  cardinal  .Christian  doctrines. 

The  Christian  thinker  may  come  to  times 
when  he  cannot  harmonize  some  philosophic 
position  and  some  Christian  fact,  but  he 
must  always  insist  that  finally  when  the  true 
philosophy  has  come,  and  Christian  doc¬ 
trines  are  finally  understood,  there  will  be 
perfect  harmony,  and  this  must  be  the  end 
toward  which  he  is  always  working.  In  the 
meantime  he  must  be  looking  for  a  philoso¬ 
phy  large  enough  to  explain  his  Christianity, 
and  not  paring  his  Christianity  down  to  fit 
into  his  philosophy. 

We  have  already  suggested  that  RitschTs 
attitude  toward  sin  is  not  that  of  the  Bible. 
Now  our  attention  needs  to  be  called  to  the 
fact  that  it  is  difficult  to  reconcile  his  own 
positions  at  this  point.  To  him  such  sin  as 
may  be  forgiven  is  conceived  of  as  ignorance. 
Yet  one  of  the  things  the  work  of  our  Lord 
does  is  to  show  a  man  how  to  get  rid  of  his 
sense  of  guilt.  Now,  here  is  rather  an 
anomaly — a  man  having  a  sense  of  guilt  for 
sins  he  does  not  know  he  has  committed. 
Psychologically,  we  believe  Ritschl’s  notion 

270 


ALBRECHT  RITSCHL 


of  sin  to  be  thoroughly  inadequate.  Then 
he  has  missed  the  Bible  emphasis  about  the 
resurrection  of  our  Lord.  To  this  day  it  is 
a  question  upon  which  there  is  disagree¬ 
ment,  as  to  whether  Ritschl  believed  in  the 
actual  resurrection.  Anyone  who  reads  the 
New  Testament  will  not  find  any  such 
doubtful  attitude  there.  Then  there  is  in 
Ritschl  a  tendency  to  try  to  account  for  as 
much  of  the  whole  thing  as  he  can,  inside  a 
man,  which  is  rationalistic.  He  seems  to 
shrink  from  gripping  what  is  quite  outside 
of  human  life,  and  this  shrinking  means  that 
rationalism  had  a  greater  hold  on  him  than 
he  knew. 

Perhaps  one  can  sum  up  that  in  which 
Ritschl’s  system  fails  by  saying  that  it  is  a 
surrender  to  the  Zeitgeist  and  not  a  chal¬ 
lenge  to  it.  The  spirit  of  the  times  says, 
‘'Surrender  the  Trinity,”  and  he  surrenders 
it.  The  spirit  of  the  times  says,  “Surrender 
the  personality  of  the  Holy  Spirit,”  and  he 
does  it.  The  spirit  of  the  times  says,  “Sur¬ 
render  the  actual  preexistence  of  Christ, 
the  miracles,  and  the  resurrection,”  and 
Ritschl  puts  no  emphasis  on  these  facts.  The 

271 


THE  QUEST  FOR  WONDER 


spirit  of  the  times  says,  “Surrender  the 
thought  of  the  awfulness  of  sin,”  and  Ritschl 
transposes  sin  into  ignorance. 

But  the  attitude  of  the  Christian  thinker 
must  be  not  of  surrender,  it  must  be  one  of 
challenge.  Taking  the  facts  which  have  been 
the  basis  of  that  satisfaction  of  the  church 
through  the  centuries,  he  must  build  his 
fortification  and  summon  the  modern  spirit 
to  make  the  attack,  confident  that  after  the 
din  of  battle,  at  the  setting  of  the  sun,  there 
shall  have  been  lost  not  one  of  the  great 
fundamental  positions  of  the  faith.  The 
supernatural  in  the  world  on  the  basis  of  a 
living,  personal,  loving,  holy  God;  the  God¬ 
head — a  Trinity,  with  a  glowing  richness  of 
life,  not  a  lonely  only  one;  the  incarnation — 
real  God  becoming  real  man;  the  sinless  life; 
the  redemptive  deed  on  Calvary,  when  He 
who  knew  no  sin  became  sin  for  us;  the 
actual  resurrection — the  eternal  session,  the 
judgment  to  come;  the  reality,  awful  in  its 
tragedy,  of  sin;  the  meeting  of  the  human 
soul  by  God  himself;  the  Spirit’s  personality 
and  ceaseless  activity  among  men ;  the  Bible 
a  basis  for  true  and  reliable  knowledge  about 


ALBRECHT  RITSCHL 


redemption — all  these  shall  stand  a  fortifi¬ 
cation,  not  simply  that  but  a  range  of  granite 
mountains,  against  which  assault  shall  beat 
in  vain.  The  Christian  theologian  must 
believe  that  Christianity  is  strong  enough 
to  do  battle  and  great  enough  to  conquer. 


273 


THE  ESCHATOLOGY  OF  THE 
BOOK  OF  REVELATION 


CHAPTER  X 


THE  ESCHATOLOGY  OF  THE  BOOK  OF 

REVELATION 

I.  The  Contexts  of  the  Book 

The  book  of  Revelation  recounts  a  series 
of  visions,  ascribed  to  John  on  Patmos,  a 
small  island  in  the  HEgean.  After  the  sec¬ 
tion  in  which  we  find  the  seven  letters  to  the 
seven  churches,  the  principal  series  of  visions 
are  those  of  the  seven  seals,  the  seven 
trumpets,  and  the  seven  bowls.  Important 
episodes,  such  as  that  of  the  woman  and  the 
dragon,  and  the  beasts  fill  out  the  structure 
of  the  book. 

A  little  closer  survey  of  its  contents  will 
be  of  use  to  us.  John  in  the  Isle  of  Patmos 
receives  the  revelations  which  are  embodied 
in  the  book.  Letters  of  warning  and  en¬ 
couragement  are  for  Ephesus,  Smyrna, 
Pergamos,  Thyatira,  Sardis,  Philadelphia, 
and  Laodicea.  Following  this,  John  sees 
the  vision  of  the  book  no  one  is  worthy  to 
open,  until  the  Lamb  that  was  slain  is  de- 

277 


THE  QUEST  FOR  WONDER 

dared  worthy  and  opens  the  book  after 
receiving  the  homage  of  heaven.  As  the 
seals  are  opened  symbolical  horses  come 
forth,  one  white,  one  red,  one  black,  one 
pale.  Then  the  martyr  souls  under  the  altar 
are  seen.  Great  disturbances  in  nature  fol¬ 
low  the  opening  of  the  sixth  seal.  The  seal¬ 
ing  of  Israel  is  described,  and  the  opening 
of  the  seventh  seal  introduces  the  seven 
angels  with  the  seven  trumpets.  Plagues 
follow  the  sounding  of  the  first  four  trum¬ 
pets,  the  woe  of  locusts  the  fifth,  and  the 
woe  of  armies  the  sixth.  Here  the  episodes 
of  the  seven  thunders,  the  little  book,  and 
the  measuring  of  Jerusalem,  with  the  death 
and  resurrection  of  the  two  witnesses,  find 
place.  Next  comes  the  account  of  the 
woman  whose  son  at  birth  is  saved  from  the 
dragon,  who  is  cast  down  to  the  earth.  The 
episode  of  the  beast  from  the  sea  and  the 
beast  from  the  land  follows.  A  series  of 
not  very  closely  connected  visions  and  utter¬ 
ances  now  occur,  ending  with  the  reaping  of 
the  earth.  The  seven  angels  with  the  seven 
bowls  pour  them  out,  part  of  them  intro¬ 
ducing  plagues  like  those  of  the  trumpets. 

278 


THE  BOOK  OF  REVELATION 


The  fall  of  Babylon  now  finds  a  large  place. 
The  marriage  supper  of  the  Lamb — then 
the  chaining  of  the  devil,  and  the  reign  of 
Christ  with  his  martyrs  and  faithful  ones  for 
a  thousand  years.  Finally  the  last  opposi¬ 
tion,  its  defeat,  the  new  heaven  and  new 
earth,  with  a  description  of  the  New  Jeru¬ 
salem,  and  concluding  words  about  the 
prophecy,  and  the  coming  of  the  Lord. 
Throughout  the  book  there  are  interludes 
where  one  catches  glimpses  of  supernal 
glory,  and  hears  choruses  of  beatific  song. 

II.  The  Problem  of  the  Authorship 

of  the  Book 

The  book  of  Revelation  itself  purports  to 
be  the  work  of  John.  And  the  testimony 
of  remarkably  clear  external  evidence  is  that 
this  John  was  the  one  whom  we  know  as  one 
of  the  twelve.  This  testimony  goes  back  to 
Irenseus,  the  disciple  of  Polycarp.  In  the 
third  century  we  come  across  the  suggestion 
that  another  J ohn  may  have  been  the  author, 
and  Eusebius  thought  it  might  have  been 
John  the  presbyter  who  was  the  author.  It 
seems  pretty  clear  that  if  the  book  comes 

279 


THE  QUEST  FOR  WONDER 


from  the  pen  of  a  John,  it  must  have  been 
John  the  apostle,  as  no  other  was  well 
enough  known  to  speak  as  the  author  does 
to  the  seven  churches. 

The  question  has  become  complicated  in 
recent  years  by  theories  of  composite  author¬ 
ship.  There  is  a  growing  feeling  among 
some  scholars  that  the  unity  of  the  book  is 
formal  and  artificial,  and  that  there  are 
traces  of  different  points  of  view,  of  different 
historical  situations,  and  of  different  authors. 
A  modification  of  this  view  is  one  held  by 
Professor  Porter  that  one  author  used  freelv 

mf 

different  apocalyptic  sources.  While  it 
seems  to  me  we  must  admit,  with  Professor 
Stevens,  that  there  are  problems  whose  solu¬ 
tion  would  be  made  simpler  by  admitting  a 
diversity  of  authorship,  I  do  not  find  the 
evidence  yet  sufficient  to  force  that  conclu¬ 
sion. 

The  really  serious  objection  to  the  Johan- 
nine  authorship,  it  seems  to  me,  is  the  differ¬ 
ence  in  the  style  emphasis  of  the  fourth 
Gospel  and  the  book  of  Revelation.  That 
they  have  much  in  common  one  cannot 
doubt,  but  there  are  differences  which,  to- 

280 


THE  BOOK  OF  REVELATION 


gether  with  other  problems,  make  me  hesitate 
to  pronounce  with  thorough  conviction  for  a 
Johannine  authorship.  We  need  not  deal 
with  this  problem  more  closely  for  the  pur¬ 
poses  of  this  discussion. 

III.  The  Problem  of  the  Date  of  the 

Book 

Jerusalem  fell  A.  D.  70.  Nero  reigned 
A.  D.  51-68.  If  the  book  anticipates  the 
destruction  of  Jerusalem,  it  was  written 
before  A.  D.  70.  If  the  historical  situation 
reflected  is  that  of  Nero’s  reign,  its  limits  are 
more  closely  fixed.  It  does  not  seem  to  me 
that  the  background  of  the  book  is  that  of 
the  reign  of  Nero.  The  persecution  which 
gives  the  book  its  atmosphere  is  one  of  far 
larger  dimensions  than  that  of  Nero.  It 
had  become  evident  that  Rome’s  character¬ 
istic  attitude  was  opposition  to  Christianity. 
This,  as  has  been  pointed  out  by  Professor 
Ramsay,  was  not  true  in  the  time  of  Nero. 
And  I  do  not  think  the  interpretation  of  the 
symbols  of  the  book  requires  his  reign  as  a 
background.  That  chapter  eleven  does 
seem  at  first  sight  to  anticipate  the  destruc- 

281 


THE  QUEST  FOR  WONDER 


tion  of  Jerusalem  is  true.  This  chapter  is 
one  which  would  fit  into  the  theory  of  com¬ 
posite  authorship  particularly  well.  On  the 
other  hand,  if  it  be  taken  as  entirely  sym¬ 
bolic,  the  difficulty  is  removed. 

The  reign  of  Domitian,  81-96,  when  a 
great  and  terrible  persecution  was  raging, 
when  Rome  had  become  the  great  opponent 
of  the  church,  is  the  most  natural  and  likely 
background  for  the  book  as  a  whole. 

IV.  The  Book  of  Revelation  and 
Other  Apocalyptic  Literature 

Before  the  book  of  Revelation  was  written 
there  was  a  great  output  of  apocalyptic 
literature.  The  book  of  Daniel  in  the  Old 
Testament  is  an  example.  Certain  common 
characteristics  of  canonical  and  non-canon- 
ical  apocalypses  are  noteworthy.  They  are 
the  outcome  of  an  age  of  persecution;  they 
speak  in  language  of  highly  wrought 
imagery,  full  of  mystery  and  in  a  form  less 
noble  than  that  of  prophecy;  they  foresee 
judgment,  and  the  victory  of  the  persecuted. 

There  has  been  a  tendency  to  closely 
relate  Revelation  to  other  apocalypses  in 

282 


THE  BOOK  OF  REVELATION 


recent  criticism.  Regarding  this  there  are 
three  things  to  be  said:  (1)  Revelation  is  a 
book  of  a  class.  It  does  not  belong  by  many 
kinships  to  apocalypses  written  before.  (2) 
It  escapes  in  a  wonderful  way  the  extrava¬ 
gances  of  the  non-canonical  apocalypses, 
and  is  as  impressive  by  its  differences  from 
them  as  its  likeness  to  them.  (3)  In  regard 
to  material  used  from  non-canonical  sources, 
the  great  question  is  not,  Where  did  it  come 
from?  but  What  is  it  worth?  not,  Was  it 
used  before?  but  Does  God  here  seal  it  as  a 
part  of  his  revelation  to  men? 

V.  The  Problem  of  the  Interpretation 

of  the  Book 

Perhaps  no  problem  of  the  kind  which 
the  church  has  had  to  meet  has  touched  in 
perplexity  the  problem  of  the  interpreta¬ 
tion  of  the  book  of  Revelation.  The  attitude 
of  the  church  at  large  has  probably  almost 
always  been  that  in  some  hidden  way  the 
book  contained  a  history  of  the  church  in 
relation  to  the  world,  and  the  final  consum¬ 
mation.  Here  the  exegesis  of  jugglery  has 
run  riot,  and  almost  every  important  char- 

283 


THE  QUEST  FOR  WONDER 


acter  of  history  has  been  given  a  place  in 
the  book  by  some  fanciful  interpreter.  The 
method  is  its  own  condemnation.  Its  results 
are  confusion  worse  confounded.  A  method 
which  results  in  the  apotheosis  of  exegetical 
insanity  can  never  be  a  true  one. 

Men  whose  judgment  has  revolted  from 
this  view,  but  who  have  reverence  for  the 
supposed  mystical  meaning  hidden  in  the 
book,  have  cut  the  Gordian  knot  by  declar¬ 
ing  that  it  refers  to  the  future.  It  is  a  mes¬ 
sage  to  the  church  to  come  in  the  final  times. 
They  will  find  themselves  in  difficulty  in 
explaining  the  fact  that  it  was  clearly  ad¬ 
dressed  to  men  who  were  alive  when  it  was 
written,  the  author’s  consciousness  of  having 
a  message  to  his  own  time,  and  in  explaining 
why  God  gave  a  message  to  his  final  church 
millennium  too  soon,  and  left  it  as  a  per¬ 
petual  bewilderment  to  those  who  came  be¬ 
fore — a  method  contrary  to  all  we  know  of 
God’s  ways  in  revealing  himself  to  men. 

Some  modern  scholars  have  taken  the 
opposite  view.  All  the  book  grew  out  of  the 
time  of  its  authorship  and  had  reference  only 
to  that  period.  A  close  study  of  the  material 

284 


THE  BOOK  OF  REVELATION 


of  the  book,  with  the  principle  of  the  time¬ 
lessness  of  prophecy  in  mind,  will  lead,  I 
believe,  to  the  conclusion  that  this  method, 
while  bearing  witness  to  an  element  of  truth, 
is  quite  one-sided  and  incomplete. 

Another  method  which  has  been  pro¬ 
pounded  with  enthusiasm  is  to  consider  the 
book  a  splendid  expression  regarding  insti¬ 
tutions  and  principles,  not  treating  of  facts 
or  incidents.  That  this  view  has  a  bearing 
upon  the  significance  of  the  book  we  need 
not  dispute,  but  that  it  adequately  explains 
a  book  whose  center  was  an  historical  situa¬ 
tion,  whose  comfort  would  have  been  all  too 
small  had  it  consisted  of  great  generaliza¬ 
tions,  and  one  which  bears  the  marks  of 
particular  reference,  I  cannot  believe. 

Before  stating  the  method  of  interpreta¬ 
tion  to  be  followed  in  this  study  it  will  be 
necessary  to  secure  the  standpoint  out  of 
which  it  comes. 

VI.  What  the  Book  Says  to  Christian 

Consciousness 

Every  book  in  the  Bible  must  vindicate 
* 

its  right  to  a  place  in  the  canon  at  the  bar 

285 


THE  QUEST  FOR  WONDER 


of  Christian  consciousness,  and  in  case  of 
perplexity  as  to  the  interpretation  of  a  book, 
the  relation  it  holds  to  that  consciousness  is 
sure  to  be  a  key  to  be  used  in  reference  to 
the  securing  of  a  proper  method. 

Now,  what  does  the  book  of  Revelation 
say  to  the  Christian  consciousness?  From 
the  first  we  find  the  book  permeated  by  the 
very  atmosphere  of  Christian  worship.  It  is 
filled  with  poetry  which  is  the  expression  of 
genuine  Christian  emotion.  It  breathes  the 
reverent  awe  and  restraint  which  is  char¬ 
acteristic  of  the  thought  of  God  at  its 
highest.  The  Holy  God  who  is  found  here 
is  he  than  whom  there  is  no  higher.  With 
regard  to  sin,  in  its  final  form  as  a  state  of 
deep  and  utter  turning  from  God,  one  finds 
an  emphasis  terribly  in  earnest  and  unflinch¬ 
ingly  real.  In  relation  to  Christ,  we  find  a 
faithfulness  to  history  and  a  depth  of  under¬ 
standing  which  is  nothing  less  than  marvel¬ 
ous.  Nowhere  is  he  more  exalted  than  here 
— high  as  the  Highest,  the  possessor  of  un¬ 
utterable  power  and  glory — yet  the  historic 
Jesus  who  walked  with  men.  Regarding 
the  atonement,  the  adequacy  of  the  book 

286 


THE  BOOK  OF  REVELATION 


may  be  measured  by  the  fifth  chapter,  which 
is  perfectly  saturated  with  the  deepest  feel¬ 
ing  of  the  worth  of  our  Lord’s  sacrificial 
death.  The  wonder,  the  abnormality,  the 
tragedy,  and  the  glory  of  the  death  of 
Christ,  all  appear  in  this  vision  of  the  Lamb 
that  was  slain.  While  there  is  an  emphasis 
on  works,  the  root  of  hope  is  that  the  blood 
of  the  Lamb  has  been  effective,  and  the  very 
works  emphasized  are  those  of  loyalty  to 
the  Redeemer. 

This  much  shows  us  what  an  appeal  the 
book  makes  to  Christian  consciousness,  and 
also  proves  that  it  must  have  been  its 
product.  Only  out  of  warm,  pulsing  Chris¬ 
tian  life  could  such  conceptions  have  come. 

But  dealing  with  the  book  in  a  closer  way, 
we  find  that  it  bears  unmistakable  marks  of 
having  been  written  as  a  book  of  consolation 
and  stimulus  in  an  age  of  persecution,  and 
the  conceptions  here  are  such  as  to  fill  it 
with  power  for  every  persecuted  Christian 
in  every  age.  With  what  blackness  of  dark¬ 
ness  the  clouds  of  evil  cover  the  sky!  The 
very  essence  of  evil,  at  its  zenith  of  power, 
pours  forth  its  terrors.  There  is  no  easing 

287 


THE  QUEST  FOR  WONDER 


of  the  problem  to  make  the  solution  easy. 
Hell’s  masterpiece  of  evil  in  history  appears, 
and  in  the  midst  of  all  the  book  absolutely 
glows  with  a  glory  of  hope.  Let  the  world 
do  its  worst,  the  righteous  shall  yet  triumph. 
The  light  of  a  hope  strong  with  a  fervor  of 
confidence  that  never  wavers,  a  hope  clothed 
with  immortal  youth  and  power,  plays  over 
the  pages  of  the  book  and  into  the  heart  of 
the  reader. 

Dominant  evil  to  be  utterly  overthrown. 
Righteousness  persecuted  unto  death,  for¬ 
ever  triumphant.  All  this  because  God  is 
God  and  Christ  is  Christ.  This  is  the  mes¬ 
sage  of  the  book  of  Revelation.  This  it  said 
to  the  Christians  of  the  first  century,  and 
this  it  has  said  to  the  persecuted  in  every 
age  since. 


VII.  Standpoint  in  Interpretation 

Now,  we  ought  to  be  able  to  find  a  clear 
and  safe  point  of  departure  for  the  interpre¬ 
tation  of  the  book.  It  said  this  word  of  hope 
to  the  sufferers  of  the  first  century.  It 
spoke  to  the  depth  of  the  Christian  con¬ 
sciousness  from  the  same  depth,  “deep  call- 

288 


THE  BOOK  OF  REVELATION 


ing  unto  deep.”  This  and  what  flow  from  it 
is  the  vital  part  of  the  book,  and  nothing 
else  is  vital.  The  kaleidoscopic  symbolism 
of  the  book  is  an  attempt  to  suggest  the  in¬ 
expressible.  The  glowing  hope  in  God,  and 
His  Christ,  leaps  over  the  barriers  and 
limitations  of  speech,  and  pours  itself  out 
in  imagery — sometimes  characterized  by 
incongruity — always  only  a  hint,  yet  a 
splendid  and  ever  valuable  monument  to  the 
confidence,  the  trust,  the  perfect  glow  of 
hope  that  inspired  it.  But  the  symbolism 
is  always  to  be  interpreted  as  the  outpouring 
in  varied  form  of  a  God-inspired  faith,  not 
as  a  mysterious  detail  map  of  the  future. 
The  book  of  Revelation  is  not  an  alchemist’s 
book  of  magic,  but,  as  it  has  well  been  called, 
‘'An  Epic  of  the  Christian  Hope.” 

We  can  agree  with  the  scholars  who  hold 
to  the  historical  method  in  believing  that  it 
grew  out  of  a  particular  historical  situation 
and  was  primarily  designed  to  meet  it.  We 
can  agree  with  the  view  which  finds  prin¬ 
ciples  in  it,  to  the  extent  that  so  profoundly 
did  it  treat  the  situation  in  which  it  found 
itself  that  it  expressed  what  is  eternally  true, 

289 


THE  QUEST  FOR  WONDER 


and  could  give  hope  to  every  following  age 
as  well  as  its  own.  But  its  author  did  not 
know  there  would  be  any  following  ages  of 
world  history.  He  was  thinking  of  his  own. 
So  accurately  has  it  dealt  with  the  funda¬ 
mental  opposition  of  good  and  evil  that 
every  new  form  of  the  age-long  conflict, 
especially  those  characterized  by  great  and 
terrible  suffering,  seems  but  the  fulfillment 
of  what  it  foretold.  This  because  the  awful 
opposition  of  the  first  century,  though  the 
author  of  the  book  did  not  know  it,  was  in 
many  forms  to  be  repeated  from  age  to  age. 
Lastly,  the  consummation  which  the  author 
foresaw — though  he  knew  it  not — was  to  be 
dela}7ed  many  centuries;  and  so  the  word  of 
God’s  final  triumph  does  await  fulfillment, 
and  will  be  both  a  message  and  a  glad  ful¬ 
fillment  to  the  final  church.  Thus,  it  seems 
to  me,  we  do  justice  to  what  is  vital  in  the 
other  theories,  and  have  a  standpoint  which 
sets  us  free  from  the  vagaries  of  Quixotic 
exegesis. 

To  present  an  outline  of  the  interpreta¬ 
tion  a  little  more  formally:  In  the  time  of 
Domitian  the  great  persecution,  which  really 

290 


THE  BOOK  OF  REVELATION 


made  it  evident  that  Rome  itself  was  the 
terrible  enemy  of  the  faith,  came  on.  In 
this  time  of  widespread  and  awful  calamity, 
when  it  seemed  as  if  the  iron  heel  of  Rome 
must  wipe  out  the  faith,  the  book  of  Revela¬ 
tion  aj^peared.  It  was  a  book  with  a  great 
past  behind  it.  Saturated  even  to  the  phrase¬ 
ology  with  the  Old  Testament,  as  Professor 
Harnack  brilliantly  says,  “It  was  thought 
in  Hebrew  and  written  in  Greek.”  We 
may  add,  that  while  it  owed  much  of  its 
form  to  the  Old  Testament,  its  outlook  and 
essential  message  belong  to  the  gospel.  It 
carried  its  own  vindication  to  the  hearts  of 
Christian  men  as  God’s  message  to  them. 
To  endure  to  the  end,  in  hope  of  sure  and 
eternal  triumph — this  was  its  summons. 
Perhaps  a  touch  of  added  mysteriousness 
was  given  to  it  because  of  the  dangers  of  this 
persecuting  age.  But  to  any  Christian  it 
carried  its  own  key  to  its  great  message  and 
needed  no  interpretation. 

It  is  not  necessary  that  we  should  peer  too 
curiously  into  the  method  of  the  origin  of 
the  message.  If  the  author  had  actual 
visions,  which  I  do  not  think  need  be  dis- 

291 


THE  QUEST  FOR  WONDER 


puted,  we  may  remember  that  vision  as 
well  as  a  prophecy  could  be  psychologically 
mediated;  and  that  it  is  quite  in  harmony 
with  what  we  know  of  God’s  methods  in 
Revelation,  that  the  inner  life  and  the  ex¬ 
perience  of  the  recipient  of  the  vision  should 
have  entered  into  and  colored  the  vision 
itself.  Into  this  realm  we  need  not  enter 
further.  The  message  spoke  God’s  word  to 
the  time.  That  was  its  vindication.  It  has 
spoken  God’s  word  to  generations  of  Chris¬ 
tians  since.  That  has  given  it  its  place  in 
the  canon.  Not  the  mysteries  of  its  symbol¬ 
ism  but  this  message  to  Christian  conscious¬ 
ness  placed  it  secure  in  the  Book  of  God. 

To  the  author  of  the  book  of  Revelation 
the  incarnation  of  all  evil  is  the  Roman 
empire.  So  his  message  of  the  overthrow 
of  evil  is  a  message  of  the  fall  of  Rome. 
This  is  one  great  burden  of  the  book.  But 
he  goes  back  of  Rome  to  the  Satanic  power, 
the  ultimate  personification  of  evil.  He  too 
is  to  be  overthrown.  With  this  final  over¬ 
throw  and  judgment  comes  the  consumma¬ 
tion  of  all  things.  As  it  was  with  the 
prophets  of  old  who  caught  a  glowing  vision 

292 


THE  BOOK  OF  REVELATION 


of  the  future,  but  to  whom  distinctions  of 
time  were  not  revealed,  so  it  was  with  this 
prophet  of  a  later  day.  Each  prophet  had 
seen  the  glorious  consummation  just  front¬ 
ing  him  or  his  age.  So  this  Christian  prophet 
seemed  to  see  the  great  future  unrolling  just 
ahead.  He  thought  all  was  to  happen 
quickly.  He  was  a  true  son  of  the  prophets 
in  this  attitude.  But  with  him,  as  with  them, 
the  consummation  was  farther  than  the  seer 
dreamed. 

The  hunger  for  revenge  because  of  the 
persecution  of  the  saints  seen  in  parts  of 
the  book  may  be  assigned  to  the  awful  ex¬ 
periences  of  the  time.  Certainly,  it  does  not 
express  a  permanent  element  in  Christian 
consciousness.  The  fact  that  almost  no 
place  is  left  for  personal  decisions  in  the 
future  grows  out  of  the  author’s  conception 
that  the  end  is  at  hand.  He  viewed  the 
world  in  the  light  of  a  bearing  already  held, 
either  for  or  against  God. 

VIII.  Outline  of  the  Eschatological 
Teachings  of  the  Book 

1.  The  figurative  passage  regarding  the 

293 


THE  QUEST  FOR  WONDER 


martyrs  under  the  altar  is  the  nearest  hint 
of  a  conception  of  an  intermediate  state. 
That  they  are  in  a  place  where  they  are 
protected  by  God,  but  not  yet  come  to  their 
full  reward,  is  the  conception. 

The  book  of  Revelation  believes  in  the 
resurrection  and  the  future  life.  Its  central 
message  of  hope  for  those  who  suffer  even 
unto  death  would  disappear  without  that. 
Its  great  goal  is  a  goal  after  death.  That 
the  Lord  is  to  come  again,  and  that  his 
coming  is  to  inaugurate  the  consummation, 
is  the  conviction  the  book  would  give  its 
readers.  Regarding  the  one  thousand  years 
reign  we  will  speak  later.  It  believes  in  a 
judgment  where  justice  will  be  meted  out 
to  all  who  have  lived — to  the  righteous 
eternal  life  with  God,  to  the  wicked  eternal 
suffering  with  the  devil.  I  do  not  think  an 
honest  exegesis  can  find  any  basis  for  con¬ 
cluding  that  the  thought  of  annihilation  ever 
entered  the  author’s  mind. 

An  important  element  in  the  forward  look 
of  the  book  of  Revelation  is  that  it  is  not 
contented  with  a  goal  for  life  like  that  of 
evolution,  a  goal  which  would  bring  great 

294 


THE  BOOK  OF  REVELATION 


things  to  some  future  generation  without 
solving  the  problem  of  those  who  perish  on 
the  way  to  this  consummation.  It  is  essen¬ 
tially  a  personal  eschatology.  All  the  dead 
are  gathered  and  the  consummation  metes 
to  each  life  its  proper  future.  Many  phi¬ 
losophies  of  history  are  brutal  compared 
with  this  splendid  outcome,  where  each 
individual  life  comes  to  its  own  goal  of  joy 
or  woe. 

In  chapter  sixteen  there  is  a  wonderful 
negative  emphasis  on  personality.  In  spite 
of  all  judgments,  the  people  described  here 
“repented  not.”  The  author  of  this  book 
knew  that  men  could  so  set  themselves 
against  God  that  his  chastisements  could  not 
move  them. 

The  teaching  regarding  heaven  is  full  of 
poetic  beauty,  and  full  also  of  reserve.  The 
perfect  city  has  glories  which  are  expressed 
in  a  description  in  which  earth’s  richest  and 
rarest  are  called  upon  to  suggest  what  can¬ 
not  be  described.  The  absence  of  death,  sin, 
and  sorrow,  and  the  presence  and  all-suffi¬ 
ciency  for  the  dwellers  of  the  city  of  God 
and  the  Lamb,  these  are  expressed  with  a 

295 


THE  QUEST  FOR  WONDER 


beautv  and  tenderness  hardly  to  be  sur- 
%}  * 

passed. 

Hints  full  of  insight  regarding  the  great 
finality  for  the  saints  are  given:  “The  Lamb 
that  is  in  the  midst  of  the  throne  shall  be 
their  shepherd,  and  shall  guide  them  unto 
fountains  of  waters  of  life”  (7.  17)  ;  “His 
servants  shall  serve  him;  and  they  shall  see 
his  face;  and  his  name  shall  be  on  their  fore¬ 
heads”  (22.  3,  4).  Service  and  fellowship 
with  God,  and  oneness  with  him — these  are 
the  final  words  about  the  final  universe. 

2.  Some  Particular  Problems  in  the  In¬ 
terpretation  of  the  Book.  ( 1 )  The  two  wit¬ 
nesses  of  chapter  two  may  symbolize  the 
witnessing,  suffering,  dying,  victorious  spirit 
to  be  found  in  the  true  church. 

(2)  The  Beasts.  The  beasts  of  chapter 
thirteen  constitute  an  interesting  problem. 
The  best  solution,  it  seems  to  me,  is  to  regard 
the  Final  Beast  as  a  symbol  of  the  Roman 
power  as  embodied  in  the  office  of  emperor, 
and  the  second  as  some  particular  manifesta¬ 
tion  of  that  power  through  some  lower 
official.  The  healed  death-stroke  has  been 
suggested  to  be  the  threatened  convulsion 

296 


THE  BOOK  OF  REVELATION 


at  the  time  of  the  death  of  Nero.  The  num¬ 
ber  six  hundred  and  sixty-six,  falling  short 
of  the  perfect  number,  may  well  suggest  the 
realization  in  humanity  of  all  that  is  oppo¬ 
site  to  holiness  and  perfection.  The  finding 
of  Nero’s  name  by  incorrectly  securing  the 
numerical  value  of  the  letters  of  his  name  in 
a  language  not  used  by  the  author  in  writing 
the  book,  and  not  understood  by  his  readers 
(cf.  Professor  Ramsay),  is  fanciful  enough. 

(3)  Babylon .  The  whole  treatment  of 
Babylon,  the  great  and  wonderful  city,  and 
its  fall,  it  seems  to  me,  without  doubt  refers 
to  Rome.  Professor  Milligan’s  attempt  to 
interpret  it  as  referring  to  the  faithless 
element  in  the  church  quite  fails  to  secure 
vital  historical  contact  for  the  passage.  On 
the  other  hand,  the  situation  out  of  which 
the  book  came  and  the  language  of  the 
passages  themselves  fit  in  a  remarkable  way 
the  interpretation  which  refers  them  to 
Rome. 

(4)  The  1,000  Years .  This  passage 
occurs  in  the  twentieth  chapter  of  the  book. 
It  describes  the  chaining  of  the  devil  and 
the  reign  of  Christ  with  his  saints  for  a 

297 


THE  QUEST  FOR  WONDER 

thousand  years.  It  is  usually  interpreted  to 
mean  a  period  immediately  following  the 
Parousia.  It  has  been  interpreted,  how¬ 
ever,  to  mean  the  whole  Christian  era  from 
the  first  coming  until  the  Parousia,  because 
Christ  in  his  work  essentially  conquered  the 
devil  and  sin.  The  reconciling  of  this  view 
with  the  statements  of  the  passage  about 
the  saints  (who  had  been  dead)  reigning 
with  Christ,  and  the  first  resurrection,  seems 
a  task  of  proportions  which  may  well  lead 
us  to  seek  shelter  in  some  other  view.  It 
seems  clear  that,  however  we  treat  the  pas¬ 
sage  in  relation  to  Christian  doctrine,  its 
meaning  as  it  stands  is  that  after  our  Lord 
comes,  there  will  be  a  resurrection  of  his 
saints  and  a  period  of  triumph  for  them 
with  him  in  this  world.  The  following  loos¬ 
ing  of  the  devil  and  final  conflict  are  full  of 
perplexity,  and  when  one  remembers  that 
the  whole  passage  in  its  present  form  repre¬ 
sents  views  unparalleled  elsewhere  in  the 
New  Testament  and  probably  contradictory 
to  other  teaching,  it  becomes  evident  that 
the  passage  cannot  be  pressed  for  purposes 
of  New  Testament  theology.  However,  it 

298 


THE  BOOK  OF  REVELATION 


is  safe,  I  think,  to  say,  that  it  is  a  witness  to 
a  deep  Christian  intuition  that  Christianity 
is  to  have  a  real  triumph  in  this  world. 

IX.  The  Eschatology  or  the  Apoca¬ 
lypse  Compared  with  Other  New 
Testament  Eschatology 

The  most  marked  divergence  of  the  book 
of  Revelation  from  other  New  Testament 
conceptions  is  to  be  found  in  the  passage 
just  discussed.  Saint  Paul  does  say  that 
Christ  must  reign  until  he  has  put  all  his 
enemies  under  his  feet  (1  Cor.  15.  25) .  But 
this  is  not  a  real  parallel,  for  Satan  is  bound 
before  the  beginning  of  the  one  thousand 
years  and  loosed  afterward.  The  two  pas¬ 
sages  have  in  common  a  victory  of  Christ  in 
this  world.  Saint  Paul  emphasizes  Christ’s 
delivering  up  the  kingdom  unto  the  Father. 
This  conception  does  not  appear  in  the  book 
of  Revelation.  The  solution  in  all  likelihood 
is  that  Paul’s  vision  had  complete  illumina¬ 
tion  at  this  point. 

In  general,  however,  it  may  be  said  that 
there  is  striking  agreement  between  the 
eschatology  of  the  apocalypse  and  that  of 

299 


THE  QUEST  FOR  WONDER 


the  rest  of  the  New  Testament.  The  great 
essential  features  of  the  outline  we  have 
given  of  this  eschatology  of  the  apocalypse 
might  have  served  as  an  outline  of  the 
eschatology  of  the  New  Testament.  Indeed, 
its  relation  to  our  Lord’s  eschatological  dis¬ 
course  in  Matthew  24  is  so  remarkable  that 
it  has  been  called  an  enlargement  of  that 
discourse  ( Milligan ) . 

X.  The  Eschatology  or  the  Apocalypse 
and  the  Christian  Theologian 

The  Christian  theologian  may  well  enter 
the  deepest  places  of  this  book  before  he 
begins  to  write  on  eschatology.  There  are 
great  moods  in  the  book  which  need  to  be 
his  mood.  The  sense  of  the  dire  evil  the 
church  must  meet  in  the  world,  of  the  indi¬ 
vidual  problems  whose  only  solution  is  in 
the  life  beyond,  he  should  feel.  Its  under¬ 
standing  of  the  power  of  a  person  to  set 
himself  permanently  against  God  should  be 
his.  The  pulsing  joy  in  the  final  triumph 
of  God  and  the  righteous  should  throb  in  his 
pages.  The  great  sense  of  the  eternal 
significance  of  the  Lamb  that  was  slain 

300 


THE  BOOK  OF  REVELATION 


should  ring  clear,  as  he  writes  of  the  final 
universe. 

This  book  joins  its  witness  with  the  rest 
of  the  New  Testament  to  the  great  eschato¬ 
logical  conceptions  he  is  to  relate  to  his 
system:  the  Parousia,  the  resurrection,  the 
judgment,  heaven,  hell;  and  he  presses  close 
to  first-century  Christian  feeling  about  these 
things  as  he  reads  the  apocalypse.  Then  he 
should  try  to  enter  into  fellowship  with  the 
subtle  spiritual  insight  of  the  book.  In  its 
symbols  he  will  find  no  hidden  map  of  the 
future,  but  he  will  find  a  wealth  of  sugges¬ 
tions  as  to  many  deep  things  of  Christian 
experience  and  life  in  them.  The  Chris¬ 
tian’s  hidden  relation  with  Christ,  suggested 
by  the  name  Christ  gives  him,  known  only 
to  himself — in  this,  and  it  may  be  in  number- 
less  other  figures,  he  may  find  hints  and 
suggestions  full  of  meaning  to  the  Christian 
devotion,  out  of  which  theological  insight  of 
a  spiritual  kind  will  come. 

And  the  final  word  of  his  eschatology  will 
be  that  of  this  book:  God  exalted,  righteous¬ 
ness  triumphant,  the  whole  universe,  all,  all 
under  God’s  sway — he  King  of  kings,  and 

301 


THE  QUEST  FOR  WONDER 


Lord  of  lords.  And  for  this  the  Hallelujah 
Chorus  will  need  to  sing  in  his  own  soul. 

XI.  The  Apocalypse  axd  Our  Hope 
The  book  of  Revelation  stands  to  many 

m/ 

like  the  sphinx  with  its  own  unrevealed 
secret,  a  strange  monument  on  the  desert  of 
the  years,  with  long,  dark  mystery  enshroud¬ 
ing  it.  But  it  need  not  be  so.  Let  us  come 
to  it  as  Christians  with  the  hunger  of  Chris¬ 
tian  hearts,  and  it  has  food  for  us.  Turning 
forever  from  the  false  esoteric  view  of  the 
book,  let  us  listen  to  its  real  message.  Have 
we  sorrow  ?  May  we  some  day  meet  persecu¬ 
tion  ?  There  it  stands  a  beacon  of  hope.  At 
the  gateway  of  death  it  draws  aside  the 
veil,  and  we  behold  “Jerusalem  the  Golden.” 
Do  earnest  lives  fail  of  fruition  here?  It 
points  with  perfect  hope  to  the  fulfillment 
beyond.  And  over  and  over  it  sings  the  song 
of  our  own  deepest  Christian  mood — the 
basis  of  our  hope — the  song  of  praise  and 
everlasting  devotion  to  the  “Lamb  that  was 
slain.” 


302 


Date  Dae 


